


Kagami no Kaabii

by ChingKittyCat



Series: Mirrored [4]
Category: Hoshi no Kaabii | Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Kirby - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boring, Gen, Mirror Universe, Monster of the Week, Mostly done so I can flesh out the mirror universe's anime completely, Retelling, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChingKittyCat/pseuds/ChingKittyCat
Summary: It wasn't so much a literal birth as probably a metaphorical one. When the sides of her blue, disc-shaped spaceship opened up to reveal the cosmos around her after a brief trip in warp speed, she was astounded. Her entire ride across the stars had gone smoothly, and now she was drifting among beautiful, brilliant starclusters and cosmos.This was her first true look at the world around her, and it was nothing short of dazzling. Her grey, orb body smeared against the window of her tiny ship as to take in more of the magnificent space around her, her nubs— like her face— pressed absolutely flush to it. Internally, she knew her journey would continue past here, that this was just the beginning of an adventure. That she'd cracked out of her  proverbial egg and was ready to experience the galaxies before her wide-eyed but without fear.And it was nothing short of exciting.-[Fic Art, contains minor spoilers][Fic Designs]
Series: Mirrored [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/795048
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Oh! A Grey Alien

The night was deep and dark, but not entirely peaceful. From the nocturnal animals that hooted and crept in the shadows to the nightowls who kept awake into the later hours, there was still some movement in the night. Thankfully, nearly none of it was sinister. Perhaps maybe like, one tenth of the population currently awake was sinister. That was pretty good, in terms of keeping the peace.

That ratio, of course, accounted for the gigantic dark cyan squid demon that was sucking up cows from a nearby pasture. That was the one and only sinister thing out and about tonight. So, aside from it, everything seem pretty fine. It's generally a win for serene sleeping aside from that one, harsh outlier. 

Said outlier was stuffing cow upon tiny cow into an open mouth with its wriggling, huge tentacles, only to spit them out much more limp than before. It was a rather strange and not very painful looking process, but telling by the glassed over eyes the cows had afterwards, it probably was devastating regardless. 

The ruckus of the cows, their calls and moos, drew their shepherd out of sleep to investigate. His half-asleep daze was instantaneously snapped into full consciousness as he looked over the motionless, somewhat flat herd that he'd once guided. The legs of the cows were thin, like paper. As if something had stripped them entirely from their bones whilst leaving the rest of their bodies perfectly intact. No blood. No gore.

No bones.

That observation took approximately one quarter of a second to make, as the herder's gaze was more focused on the gigantic squid still gobbling up his herd. The Cappy screamed and shouted out of fear and anger as to try and make the demonic, red-eyed presence leave. 

Thankfully for him, the being was already on it's way out, floating in the air. Its tentacles drifted behind it like a ghost as it retreated back to the large, polished quartz castle in the distance. 

So of course, an angry visit to the castle and the royalty it contained was going to be necessary.

* * *

"You honestly expect me to believe that a giant fish showed up in your pasture," Escargon was tired both physically and mentally from the sound of his sigh, "and deboned all of your cows."

Bothering with anyone other than his majesty was absolutely exhausting due to how hyperactive and hyperbolic they were. The darkly colored snail just wanted to be back in his lab, not listen to screaming citizens at like.. Late 'o'clock at night. Dedede himself, however, seemed to be quite willing, and was sitting at a rather gallantly set up square dinner table, sipping wine, eating fish, and watching the entire thing take place.

The handful of peasant-dressed farmers and ranchers before Escargon looked quite displeased, possibly even ticked off by his reply.

"We saw the thing fly towards the castle and hide behind it! We know it's in here, it was giant!"

"Ugh, don't talk so loud."

Escargon's annoyance made the surrounding Waddle Dee guards point their spears out at the late night visitors, but the pale blue Cappy-folk were not deterred nor scared by some mint green shrimpy guards with pointy sticks.

"This giant quote-en-quote demon you saw, if it was so big, we wouldn't be able to put it in the castle. We don't exactly have anywhere to put it. Now, if you'll excuse me and his majesty, we have important business to attend to. Like working. And sleeping."

Escargon was about to give the hand gesture to tell the Waddle Dees to escort the group away, but just then, four sets of footsteps (two running whilst the other were walking) approached from the side.

"Wait a second, Doctor Escargon!"

The voice of the young Bun rang out as the spunky boy dashed over the dark snail's side. Fumu was close behind, holding the same expression as her somewhat nerdy looking brother. The red Lololo and the near-white cyan Lalala floated above them, just there to spectate and not much else.

"You're second to the king, you need to hear people out if they ask for help!"

He continued, quieting as his mother and father approached behind them.

"Yeah, Doctor, you act like an inconsiderate ass. I'm sure there probably is a big evil squid in this castle somewhere."

Fumu's foul language got an instant glare from both the inconsiderate ass in question and her father. 

"Your daughter is in need of some soap in her mouth, Cabinet Minister Parm. I'd say its in your best interest to keep both of your children in their place."

Escargon's tone came out less like a growl and more like a sarcastic hiss. Like he knew exactly what sort of trouble Fumu could get into if he just poked and prodded a little more than necessary. 

"Dad," Fumu whipped around to look at her cold father dead in the eyes, "I'm right though."

"Fumu," Parm warned, "you do not use that language around his majesty Dedede, Escargon, or me. And you are not right. Escargon is a very respectable man, and his majesty would not allow beasts in his home."

Fumu looked to her mother for assistance, but Memu only nodded agreeingly.

"King Dedede would never."

Her mother's response was disheartening, and Escargon's smug smirk only drove Fumu to pout. 

"Your majesty," Escargon turned to look at the dark drinking king, "shall I have the Waddle Dees escort these civilians back to their homes?"

The black penguin king blinked his glassy white eyes before truly getting into the conversation, holding his glass of red wine. It wasn't exactly a special occasion, he'd just felt like having some.

"You said something about a squid."

The king's voice was deep and gravelly, just hearing him speak was cause for reverence. He really did look and sound the part of king, just like he should. The king gestured over to a nearby fish tank with the slight movement of his glass.

"Does it look anything like this one does, zoi?"

In the fishtank was one singular fish. A squid of a pale cyan and speckles of dark blue. It's eyes were a brilliant, horrible red. But despite the evil color of eyes, it was a soft looking creature and seemed relatively harmless.

"That's it! That's the thing that ate them!"

The Cappys sounded more angry than fearful or shocked. All this hub-ub about a monster existing or not and it was literally sitting in a fishtank right next to the king.

"This is the pet I got for Meta. I figured it would reteach him some social skills. It's harmless."

The king got up from his seat, grabbing at the bones of his fish meal before departing from the table. Dedede dropped a single bone into the fish tank, the squid in question slurped up the bone like it were some sort of noodle. Then, it chewed, and swallowed.

"It doesn't even eat meat, zoi. It can't stand it, even if there's bones inside. I'm calling this emergency court adjourned."

Dedede sipped at his wine halfheartedly before departing from the room entirely. The Cappys were quite pissy with the sudden dismissal, furrowed brows and angry faces at their problems being legitimately ignored.

"That's that. Now, get out of here and go home!" Escargon waved his hand and the Waddle Dees began to poke the Cappys out of the courtroom, much to their audible displeasure.

Bun wasn't one to immediately give up on people in need, though, and meandered over to the fishtank whilst Fumu talked it out with her parents. Mostly out of curiosity, mostly because he could tell something was wrong with that mollusk in the tank. But the longer he stared, the longer it just stared back.

"Bun, we're going back to the apartment, hurry!" Memu called.

Bun blinked once, twice, then turned his back on the squid, walking away just as it squinted.

* * *

Despite their father's scoldings later, and the curfew set, neither Fumu nor Bun were deterred from their desire for truth. Call them curious, call them dumb, maybe they were both, but they needed some answers. At least for the sake of the villagers who lived there. Unrest wasn't exactly uncommon, after all, and a despised, lazy monarchy wasn't one they'd like to advertise.

Oh. Also Lalala insisted on coming because she was bored, thus making Lololo follow with as well.

Sneaking out into the night, across the paths of Pupupuland, they ventured deep into the jungle-like forest along an overgrown wooden path. The shrubberies were quiet, and no animals decided to bother either of the children tonight, thankfully. The two approached a large, cavernous opening of a harsh cliff rock, its maw open like a set of jaws with spikes hanging down from the top. Vines draped down like saliva to decorate this mouth.

Pushing through, and still following the wood, the path got better as they headed through the torch-lit cave to the eventual large, grand clearing. A beautiful crystalline cave with an opening above to let in moonlight, vines and other such bits of nature crawling down the sides of the walls to intermingle with the rocks. Water encompassed the entire cave opening, except for the man made wooden dock that'd been there since before either Fumu or Bun were born. 

As they arrived to their destination, they found that they weren't the only ones there. On the dock, as well, were the same Cappy farmers from the castle. More than likely, they were looking for the same wisdom that the siblings sought. So, without a single word to each other, they looked towards the main centerpiece of the cave; what'd they come for.

There was a single, large tree with branches long and twisting, with roots so large that they could be used as bridges from the distant dock to the small island it inhabited. It's overhanging leaves were perfect, and though this tree took up most of the cavern, the light of the moon could still be seen through its branches and foliage.

In the tree's boisterous trunk was a simple face, with two empty holes for eyes and a emotionless mouth— currently closed shut.

"Kabu! We have business with you! There's a monster terrorizing us and eating our cows! We can't get any sleep because we're too worried about that monster flying around!"

One of the farmers spoke out, only to receive absolutely nothing in return.

"King Dedede is definitely behind it, and we won't stand for anymore of it! Tell us what to do!"

The noises of rage from the totally justified farmers still went unanswered by the great tree. Bun looked towards the farmers in an almost exasperated sort of way. Like when they said something really stupid and now he has to be the one to correct them.

"You have to be polite and soft to Kabu or he won't answer."

Bun advised, getting some dumbfounded glares from the adults as he adjusted his glasses. He coughed, about to speak, but just as he was about to, Fumu interjected as to steal his spotlight.

"Great Kabu, could you tell us if there is a monster in Pupupuland, and if Dedede is responsible?"

She spoke in a hush, calm voice. After her question, she looked towards Bun with a almost malevolent smirk on her face. Bun rolled his eyes, pushed up his glasses, and watched as the tree's mouth began to move.

"Yes," the tree creaked with the voice of a old man, "there is a demon beast in this land, and it feeds upon the marrow of all those rare enough to contain it to grow into apocalyptic enormity."

Apparently that was all Kabu had to say, because he left a large, awkward silence after speaking that.

"A-A demon? Beast?" 

Bun shivered at the thought. Just being a monster was bad enough, but a demon and a monster? Oh boy, that did not sound good. Fumu didn't seem all too scared though.

"Great Kabu, where did it come from? Is Dedede responsible?"

She said in the same tone from before, which encouraged Kabu to continue.

"It was created by the Lord of Misery, Nightmare. All-powerful head of the Holy Nightmare Corporation; an industrial machination which has dug its talons into the universe in an all-encompassing pseudo-imperious governance."

"Hey," Fumu whispered to her brother, "what is he saying?"

"He's saying that Nightmare is— I think— the president of this corporation, and that it rules the universe with an almost tyrannical iron fist." Bun whispered back, not exactly liking what he was hearing.

"Pupupuland will become razed if naught is done."

The farmers were quiet in their distress at the great tree's words, as Lalala (who, yeah, was still there despite not saying anything) decided to speak up, adjusting the sunglasses on top of her head idly with her hand.

"That's real depressing. Whatta' we gotta do? Go punch some capitalist in the face? Because I'm all for that. Been too long since I've beat up some evil rich guys."

Lalala, cool and chill as always, was still able to get a response out of the tree despite what she was saying. Her tone and delivery was enough to not shun Kabu into silence.

"Through time and space, prophetic aid from the Suns will deliver unto us their warrior— one of infinite power. Kirby."

"Kirby?" 

Bun parroted, mulling over the thought of a warrior with 'infinite power' in his mind. What could that possibly look like? Well, he had a pretty good imagination, and Kirby was a pretty gender neutral sounding name.. So of course he's going to imagine some super hot warrior girl with giant guns.

"Oh, she sounds cool!"

Fumu said it slightly louder than she should've, causing Kabu to shut his trap, and then his eyes. If it weren't for the carved out indents of his eyes, he would've looked like any regular ol' tree.

"Shoot." She snapped, realizing her mistake costed her some more questions to Kabu.

"Nice going." 

Bun commended, receiving a stomp on the foot from Fumu before trudging off. Bun just hopped around on one foot after her. Lalala just shrugged and followed after, whilst Lololo gave one look back before trailing as well.

Just as Lololo faced away, the sky visible through the hole in the ceiling flashed a brilliant, harsh white, making the farmers gasp and immediately making the children turn to see the disturbance. A meteor streaked across the sky, and couldn't have been much higher than the tree line of the jungle below it. The thunderous crash coupled the terrifying noise of trees being uprooted and destroyed was enough to tell anyone with ears that said meteor had crashed down and skidded tremendously due to its angle. 

The decision to check whatever that was out was unanimous amongst the children. Not wanting to have to be on the end of these kid's dad's lectures if they got hurt, the farmers high-tailed it out of there as soon as possible.

Sure enough, a long streak of destruction crossed the jungle, then into the country, all to stop atop a large cliff. Had the meteor gone just a couple inches forward, it would've plummeted down into the abyss that was the rocky chasm below.

This meteor, upon immediate inspection, was not at all a meteor. In fact, it was a ship. A spaceship. From the brightly glowing blue metal, it was easy to tell it had been incredibly damaged from it's trip through the atmosphere and dirt. As the children and farmers approached, the middle part of the ship clattered off onto the grass, letting out a tiny spherical alien from its cockpit to fall down among the broken glass and metal.

Considering how it was night time, it was a bit hard to see amongst the darkened grass, but the ship behind this extraterrestrial orb provided enough light to at least see the outline of this fellow in detail. It was.. Well, a grey orb. With yellow eyes, tiny little nubs, and tiny little floppy feet that were extremely common this side of the galaxy.

"It's an alien!"

Fumu smiled widely, going and picking up said alien by its tiny nubs. It was a significantly smaller size than Fumu or Bun, maybe just only slightly taller than Lololo and Lalala were.

"Fumu don't touch that thing, we don't know where it's been! It probably- It might have some sort of space diseases that we don't even know about!"

Bun scolded, making Fumu drop the orb with a pout. The tiny orb, quite confused, looked around at the two twins who floated, the two siblings on the ground, and then at the surroundings.

"Why don't we just ask it if it has any diseases. Hey!" Fumu got the orb's attention squarely on her. "Orb thing. Do you have any space diseases?"

The orb scratched its head, making a soft cute noise as it tried to process what Fumu was saying. As it did so, Bun came to a shocking sudden conclusion.

"Poob...?"

"Well, there you have it. This guy's got a terminal case of poob." Fumu nodded, took a second, then panickingly looked at her hands. "Oh no! I've probably got poob too now!"

Whilst Fumu was busy flailing her hands to get some non existent water off of them, Bun composed himself calmly to ask the next question. He could only hope his intuition wasn't correct.

"You," he begun, "you wouldn't happen to be Kirby, would you?"

"Kaabii?" The alien parroted, confused at first but quick to jump to calm affirmation, "Kaabii."

His dream of a hot warrior babe just spiderwebbed then shattered right in front of Bun's eyes. A look of true horror creeped across his face, and he damn well near fainted because he didn't have some amazonian princess coming to protect Pupupuland in a suit of metal armor that didn't protect her collarbone or shoulders.

"Well I think she's cute. Even if she does have poob."

Fumu said. Just then, abruptly, Kirby's ship caught fire. Then it exploded. The explosion was harsh enough to knock all the villagers back, and to make the flying twins spin around in the air. But apparently Kirby, because she was an alien, had a different outcome. Instead he spiraled straight downwards off the cliff, her poyo echoing off the walls.

Gasps came from the slightly charred Pupulanders, and they rushed to see Kirby bounce directly off a wall and into the deep blackness below.

"Someone needs to help her!"

Lololo was obviously growing with his anxiety as he looked over.

It was pretty dark down there, so Lalala took off her glasses and reflected the moonlight to navigate better.

With that, the children and their orbs scaled down the vertical cliff, which was a very smart thing to do at night with no adult supervision. Bun was the slowest of the pack, stumbling over almost nearly every rock he got his feet on. His anxiety out of falling just like Kirby had was well justified considering how much he got out and climbed. Which was like.. Evidently never.

Lololo had to help him every step of the way whilst Fumu was busy scaling rocks like no-one's business. That's why when she got far enough away from Bun, she couldn't save him when he stepped on a rock that immediately crumbled underneath him.

He spiraled down, directly into the darkness, smashing his head once on the wall of rock before plummeting further. His scream was loud and tearing, much like that one akin to a dying animal or a really, really scared child. Which he was technically both right now.

Thankfully though, lady luck was kind to him. So was Kirby. As Bun toppled down, he'd stirred Kirby from a cliffside hovel as to grab Bun's leg right as he passed by. Kirby was hardy and sturdy enough to keep Bun held, and to not be pulled down either. Bun continued screaming, though, and even flailing as Kirby held him. Up until he realized he wasn't feeling the wind on his skin.

"Bun! Are you okay!?"

Fumu called down to her brother, who'd suddenly shut himself up.

"I think Kirby caught me! I'm okay!"

Bun shouted back. Due to the darkness of the ravine, Bun couldn't see Kirby's face. Also he was upside down and Kirby was holding him by the foot, that too. He couldn't see the mischievous smirk that made itself upon visitor's lips.

All Bun knew was that suddenly Kirby's nubs were off his leg, and he was suddenly falling again. More screaming ensued for a good tenth of a second before he was caught again, the same set of nubs on his foot. Bun wheezed and coughed as he was brought out of the darkness by a puffed up, floating Kirby.

He was deposited on the grassy ground and was joined aptly by his sister and the two floating twins. Kirby slapped at his forehead in an attempt to get him up sooner, but he almost just died. He needed a moment.

"Wow, she brought you all the way back up! She's stronger than she looks, huh?"

Fumu noted, offering her hand for her brother to take. Sure enough, he did take it, and he looked back at Kirby with a bit of scorn.

"You could've just flown back up?!"

Bun gasped accusingly, not keeping himself from being angry with this random stranger that he knew saved him.

"That's not really something you should say to someone who just saved your life, dude." Lalala waggled her finger, lounging back like this entire situation was no big deal.

"Y-Yeah, she seems like she's a good gal. And Kabu said she was a warrior with infinite power, so..." Lololo added, sticking close to his sister.

Kirby blinked at the kids and the twins before she promptly turned and walked away. Just straight up started walking away, no goodbye, nothing. Just left. Bun, of course was offended at this.

"Hey! Where are you going!?"

"I don't think she understands what we're saying," Lalala shrugged, floating still as Bun gave small chase, "she's an alien. Not everyone in space knows the same language."

"T-Though there is a universal one put in place... and it's the one we use.." 

Lololo was clearly a bit timid in telling his piece, which Lalala just gave a 'pfft' noise to. Lalala only started to move once Fumu followed her brother, who was following Kirby. 

Of course, as luck would have it, Kirby headed straight into the direction of the village. While it wasn't very active at night, nor very lit up, there were still the stray homes that had their lights on, and the town plaza's big rock did have its little candles all lit up— as it did every night.

Kirby mumbled something in curiosity, looking down upon the town from a big grassy hill. Fumu and Bun were close behind him to explain what he saw.

"Hey Kirby," Fumu spoke first as she pointed at the village, "that's Pupu Village. You can't see it very well because it's night time, but it's there."

Kirby just stared at her for a moment then tried to do a cartwheel. Which, of course, was directly in Fumu's path, so she just ended up sort of smacking her forehead directly into her.

"What is up with you, seriously? Whatever. Oh, you don't know my name. You should probably know it if you're staying here, because I'm a pretty big thing. My family is stacked. I'm Fumu."

Kirby blinked from her sat down position, silent.

"And I," Bun walked next to his sister, "am her younger brother, you can address me by Bun."

Still no response from Kirby, even when the floating twins came close.

"And us two, we serve under their family, we're Lololo.."

"And Lalala." 

Lalala took a little bit to complete her brother's sentence, but it seemed fine anyways. Kirby got the picture. She gave a little nod, showing that she understood. That certainly brought a smile to Fumu's face.

"Guess she does get it."

Just as she said that, Kirby decided that the best course of action was a bit of late-night walking. Which first off, involved her cartwheeling down the side of this hill, all the way to the bottom. She did it on purpose, of course. Shocked by her actions, the squad of kids followed after, finding her unscathed on the dirt road underneath said hill.

Kirby then toddled all the way to a nearby pumpkin patch, thankfully unattended due to it being night time, and sat down like she was making herself at home. When she got there, she opened her mouth and summoned a tornado to slurp up the pumpkins directly into his gullet. She ate maybe five pumpkins before he shut her mouth, deactivating the whirlwind.

With the vine still sticking out of her mouth, she almost deadly stared at Fumu and Bun, who were as confused as anyone would be if someone just. Did that. 

"What're we gonna do with her? She can't stay with us, dad says no pets. Also we can't.. Have her bringing twisters into the apartment."

Fumu whispered to her brother, who thought about it for a moment. All the solutions he was coming up were a bit. Bad. Not in the sense that they were immoral or anything- well okay, they were a little illegal but they weren't immoral.

"Doesn't the mayor have a porch?"

"I think so."

"We can hide her under there for the night, then come back in the morning and introduce her to everyone. No way we'll be able to get her into the castle without a Waddle Dee seeing."

Fumu's was pretty concerned at Bun's logic, but she knew he did have a point. Looking back at Kirby, who was still just sitting there like a dead fish, the two nodded before putting their plan into action. Fumu picked up a pumpkin and shoved it into Kirby's mouth for the road, then picked her up. A brisk walk to the neighbor's porch, then home to sleep.

* * *

"Your majesty," Escargon squinted slightly against the dawn's light as he peered through his binoculars, "there's something.. Smoldering over there. It looks like a fire."

Dedede squinted at the long, thin drag of smoke in the morning's air. It was fall, crossing into winter. Wildfires were rare considering the land's forests were lackluster. Considering the direction said smoke came from, chances are this was no wildfire.

* * *

When the four kids came back the next morning to check up on Kirby, they'd found what they'd dreaded most. See, the mayor got up rather early, and Kirby had a tendency to wander. So Kirby had wandered all the way into the mayor's house. And she didn't go through the door either, telling by the broken window on the front.

Much less to say the sheriff, Borun, was also there. It was like running up on a crime scene, except the criminal was also there and said criminal was your friend. Well, maybe friend was a bit much.

Kirby was in Borun's hands with these oversized handcuffs on. The mayor and he seemed to be discussing something before the children ran up in a frenzy to explain themselves.

"Hey! Wait! Don't send Kirby to jail! We know her!"

Fumu nearly skid as she halted in front of the adults. She tried to snatch Kirby out of Borun's hands, but the chief simply held Kirby up higher like this was some sort of game of keepaway.

"Then you should know this thing's a outsider, and as if that wasn't bad enough, it trespassed on private property by breaking a window!"

Kirby just kicked his legs idly as Borun stated his crimes. Bun looked rather worried, but he composed himself the best he could. He cleared his throat a bit to get the attention onto him.

"Fumu and I went and found Kirby late last night in a spaceship. When we asked Kabu about her, Kabu said she was a warrior of infinite power that would help protect the village from the cow-eating monster."

Borun and the mayor just stared down at Bun's story, and the longer they stared without saying anything, the more nervous he got. Adults around here could be frightening at times, after all.

"..Well, if you want to be responsible for her," Borun had this corrupt look in his eye, "I'll just bill the cabinet minister for her bail."

"And I'll bill her for my broken window." 

The mayor added, looking equally as advantageous. The Cappys in this village were just as sinister as they were blue. Which was to say they were very much so. Sometimes it really felt like the royalty was the only thing that wasn't corrupt. Well, as corrupt.

"Uh, no need to do that!" 

Bun chuckled nervously. As if sensing the situation presenting itself to be vulnerable, Fumu leapt at the sheriff. She toppled him over due to his startle, making him drop Kirby. Kirby got the message immediately and shook off her cuffs, cartwheeled to her feet, then bolted. Fumu and Bun were close behind whilst the two adults gave chase.

Hopping the fence into the mayor's cow pen, they just kept running until they managed to lose said adults. Then perhaps, they ran a bit more just for good measure. They ran and ran until they were stopped by the sight of deflated cows. Bovine without bones. Seeing a hill valley full of dead animals was certainly not very nice to some young kids. 

"That's something I don't think I ever needed to see."

Fumu said, completely aware of the irony of the statement with the fact that her eyes were always covered by her bangs. Just as they were stopping to 'admire' the view the same way one admires a dead body, the kids heard some crunching footsteps and fled, fearing the chief and mayor were after them again.

They ran and ran further, until they'd reached a nearby barn where said cows were kept. Key word. Were.

The blue barn's heavy wooden doors proved too hard to shut for two children and one orb who didn't want to help at all. So, they just ended up jumping into some hay left out in one of the corners, finding it prickly and annoying, but useful for stealth. Kirby didn't get that they were hiding and stood out in the open for a moment before Fumu's hand reached from the pile and forced Kirby in.

Two.. No wait, three sets of footsteps entered the barn.

"They were just in here."

That's not the chief's voice, nor is it the mayor's. In fact, that was.. Mace Knight's voice. And wherever Mace Knight went, Axe Knight went too. Except for when he didn't, but they were usually found together.

Footsteps approached the hay, then hands dug through it until they hit skin. Bun was pulled out by his shoulder, Fumu by her arm, and Kirby just walked out. Man, Mace Knight and Axe Knight made Bun's heart pound. They seemed like criminals with the way they dressed. A tattered cape on Mace, whilst some fur on Axe. Not to mention the fact that they always had their namesake weapons on them.

Bun held his breath as he locked eyes with the person the third set of footsteps had matched with; Meta. Grey and constantly angry looking, with a voice flat and icy. Thankfully, though, Meta's yellow gaze wasn't on him. It was on Kirby. Two yellows eyes, one much more innocent looking.

A nice, awkward pause.

"Kirby.."

Meta breathed out before turning and leaving, his cape not so much as fluttering as he walked. Bun looked towards Mace Knight, who let go of Bun's shoulder and walked after Meta. Axe followed directly after. Standing in confusion, Bun looked at Kirby, then half-jogged after Meta. 

"Sir Meta! How do you-"

"I was expecting him."

Was all Meta needed to say. He just.. Stared off into the distance, looking at that thin column of smoke. Then, he continued walking like he didn't need to explain himself further. Axe and Mace followed, leaving the children at the barn.

* * *

"It doesn't seem like there's much left of this thing."

Escargon observed, looking over the wreckage. Whatever had been here certainly wasn't anymore. All that was left were some small bits of blue metal stuck in the ground, as well as some other little bits and bobs. Parts of the metal had long since cooled, so it was fine to touch. Other parts were still legitimately on fire. So.

"This better not be a surprise gift," Dedede huffed, "like that 'gift' for Meta."

Escargon foraged a bit amongst the grass before finding something particularly shiny amongst the rubble. A tiny box, with a tiny silver hinge, and a red coating. Certainly not made of wood, and it survived the obvious explosion that had happened.

"..Give that here." 

Dedede ordered, holding out his hand. Escargon delivered, and the dark penguin king opened up the small box. He expected a ring or some sort of jewelry, but he received neither. Instead, a glowing blue disc with spikes all over it, nestled in some decorative fabric was all he got. Removing it from its casing, it twinkled in the day's sun. In fact, it seemed to just.. Be decorated to be a blue sun.

"Must be a good luck charm, since it didn't blow up with.. Whatever this was."

Escargon noted. Dedede gave him a blank stare, then waddled back to his truck. Well, technically it wasn't a truck, it was more like an ATV with a gun on it. Once sat in his seat, he kept the little sun in both his hands.

His snail joined him, grabbed the wheel, then drove from the wreck all the way back to the castle at a speed within the set limit. In town it was a bit slower, slow enough to the point where it felt like the Cappys passing by were walking faster than the car could go. The passing royalty was met with a glare or two, but as usual, he didn't seem to care.

Well, if King Dedede did care, he kept it to himself.

Past the drawbridge, into the parking spot, Dedede let himself off and moved like a man on a mission all the way back to his throne room. Escargon felt like he wasn't needed, so he didn't join. Which, well, he wasn't.

The dark king went right past the aquarium he kept in the room and sat directly in his silver throne. He sighed, rubbed his temple, then pressed a button on the chair's left arm. The room went dark, but not dark enough that one couldn't see. It was more like a low-light red. The entire place got this sinister, angry tone of red washed over it as pale metalled structures rose from the floor and descended from the ceiling, just giving off more red light as they did. Then, from the king's side, a television screen unfolded itself from the wall and looked down upon him.

A flick on, and a face was revealed. Harsh pastel yellow background, and a harsh man to look at. Dedede swerved around to look at the screen, staring directly at the person on it. A humanoid man wearing yellow, with glasses that had no shine in them. There was always something about this fellow that unnerved Dedede, perhaps it was the way he just looked in general.

The smile added to it. It looked wrong. He couldn't explain why or how, but the straight and near-perfect smile the guy had on his face felt deadly wrong.

"Hello and welcome back to Holy Nightmare's Demonbeast Delivery line, King Dedede. I trust Meta has been enjoying that complimentary gift I sent over?"

Dedede didn't know much about retail, but he knew that the robotic greeting was a big part of it. Part of being polite and making customers feel welcome. The king shook his head, and that's all the fellow on the screen needed.

"Give it some time, and I'm sure he'll come to really love it." The salesman said, positive of his statement. "Now, is there anything else to be done today?"

"He does not like it. At all. I'm returning it. I get the feeling he doesn't like fish. Send a dog or something next time."

The salesman's smile did not dip when Dedede expressed his dissatisfaction. In fact, it seemed like he'd anticipated such a response long before Dedede had even said it.

"He does strike me as more of a cat person, but I will note that. No harm, no foul. Put it back onto the transporter and I'll take it."

With a little heft, Dedede pulled himself off of his throne and wandered over to the fish tank as to retrieve his bone-eating squid. He pulled it out by the head, which the squid flailed a bit, splashing water everywhere before it eventually latched onto the king's arm. 

Its tentacles wrapped tight, tighter than any normal squid could possibly dream to. The king grunted and pulled on the squid, trying to get it off. But the harder he pulled, the stronger the grip got.

"It really doesn't want to leave, zoi."

Dedede grumbled, his grey eyes looking a still smiling man on a television, then back to the squid. He literally locked eyes with this thing in an attempt to intimidate it. Apparently this was a bad idea, because the squid had evil, sinister, twisted, and various other nasty powers.

So. Yeah.

The king's eye flashed to a bright red before completely engulfing his whites with a red gloss, one which obscured even his pupil. Dedede fainted, falling to the floor as the squid began to change shape. It grew several times, tentacles folding into a peanut shape. Within seconds, none could differentiate the squid from the fainted ruler on the floor. The demon stripped the king of his fancy robe, and grabbed his hat for good measure.

"..What are you waiting for? Go get him. You can sense him. Don't come back unless he's dead."

The salesman chimed one final time before the screens and machines returned to their hidden spots in the room. The lights returned to normal, and with literally basically nothing changed about his demeanor, ‘Dedede’ quietly lumbered out of his throne room.

Thankfully for him, he didn't have to go very far to find who he was looking for. Just a bit of a thirty minute trek down to the nearby cove. The castle overlooked the sea and what not, so. Regardless, the dark grey Sun Warrior he was looking for was there, along with Fumu and Bun.

The children looked to be drawing in the sand. Well, with a pull of his poleaxe and his presence announced by the crunch of sand underneath his feet, that was quickly stopped.

"Woah, woah, hey, great King Dedede-"

Bun tried to defuse, but Dedede and his squid were simply not having it. There was a job to be done here, and he needed to clobber that dumb Sun Warrior orb in front of him. With a leaping charge, he slammed his poleaxe down on Kirby hard enough to slice the kid into two and to kick up sand in the poleaxe's wake. Kirby, thankfully, only got a slight cut.

Fumu and Bun gasped and screambled away as quickly as they possibly could. Thankfully for the two kids, Dedede wasn't going after them. He was hyper focused on Kirby, for whatever reason. But luck was a kind lady to Kirby. Well, she was a kind lady only after Dedede slapped Kirby around into a couple of rocks, but then lady luck was kind.

For then and only then, Lololo and Lalala appeared. Lalala was nice enough to punch Dedede in the eye hard enough to bruise.

"Aw yeah, free excuse to beat up Dedede!" 

Lalala called, putting on her cool sunglasses before continuing to beat up on the penguin's face. Dedede, of course was having none of this and focused his attempts on slapping her out of the air with his hand. When that didn't work, he turned to using his poleaxe. As Dedede flailed about like an idiot, the bruised Kirby found her chance to literally take Dedede's feet out from underneath him, making him fall onto his back and into the sand as he kicked out from underneath him.

That's when a badge-like sun fell out of Dedede's cape and rolled slightly away from him. Bun was quick to pick it up and then retreat back. Fumu poked at it before turning her head back towards the action. Dedede, strangely enough, hadn't gotten up.

From around the back of his head, tentacles emerged and squirmed. The king’s body was sucked up whilst a body enlarged and tentacles wiggled. Fumu and Bun took precautionary steps back as the squid grew and grew, growing to the point where ‘King Dedede’ had completely disappeared under it's dark, speckled cyan body.

Its red eyes grew more intense at it glowered down upon the kids. More specifically, Kirby. It raised a tentacle and slammed it down, narrowly missing Kirby. However, the force of the smash caused Kirby to fly back into the ocean, where he was a sitting duck for the squid to trap in its slimy arm.

Bun's yells of resistance were futile as he just watched Kirby get plucked up then tossed into the squid's mouth. Just straight in, like a tiny piece of candy. Completely gone. Even Lalala was horrified, lowering her sunglasses she'd just put on in disbelief.

It was a long moment.

Then Kirby got spat back out. Sure, she was a little rough around the edges and was groaning, buts he seemed fine. Well, as fine as one could be when they just went into a squid's mouth. She staggered to her little grey feet. The squid seemed frustrated at the fact Kirby hadn't gone down, narrowing its eyes.

Bun and Fumu watched on in horror as the the squid pouted, then opened its mouth again. Its tentacles wriggled and it moved aback, latching onto the cove's stone walls and wiggling along them vertically with no fear of falling down.

From its mouth a spew of tiny squid babies came flying out, using the flappy things on the sides of their heads to fly and shoot at Kirby like little missiles. Which exploded. These explosions weren't fire either, they were ice. The sort of ice that had white fog coming off of it too, the sort of ice that gets your skin stuck onto it and if there was no warm water nearby, you'd have to forcefully rip yourself off of.

Kirby ran from these little torpedo squids, even diving into the ocean to try and find safety there. Though, that didn't help either, and the squids just followed after her there as well. Her mad dash between land and sea seemed endless, and more and more parts of his body were getting covered in ice due to the wiggly demons exploding either near her or on her.

Kirby flopped over, exhausted, still being shot and hit relentlessly by the endless swarm of ice babies. 

"W-We can't just stand here and do nothing!" Lololo sounded scared, but he was completely right.

Watching Kirby just get pummeled into the ground like this was certainly a scary idea; Kabu had told them of Kirby's strength, now Kirby was going to just flop over and die like that? That's not possible, she had to be able to do something, anything against these foes.

But Bun couldn't think of anything. If he couldn't think of anything, chances are Fumu would be thinking of something that'd only put her in danger, same with Lalala. Bun looked down upon the sun in his hands, trying to formulate anything, anything that could've possibly been useful in this situation. He shivered, thinking of what might happen if he didn't. 

As though reacting to his intense worry, the blue sun twinkled and flashed brightly, sparkling in large rays that had no explanation behind them. Bun held the sun away from his face, and the rays not only blinded the squid momentarily— at least, that's what one would gather from it closing its red, beady eyes— and dazed the babies to fly aimlessly.

Through this distraction, Kirby struggled up, the ice shaving itself off of his back. Being not distracted by this at all helped, as Kirby opened her mouth, and inhaled. She inhaled the swarm, the cloud of baby cold squid directly into his mouth. Parts of the tornado of breath were so strong that it made the bigger squid's flappy bits wave in the wind.

She sucked it all up under the light of his blue sun until it faded. Kirby's body wavered from a deep, dark grey to a dark blue. From his body exhumed clouds like dry ice would produce, as a silver band formed itself on his head. Large icicles sprung from within the band, showing off a sharp crown fit for someone truly in touch with the merciless winter.

Kirby'd looked more determined now, and one could tell she was far better off than when she was just grey by the sheer determination on her face.

"She can make hats out of thin air? And change colors?"

Lalala observed, pointing out the obvious. As the bright light from the sun Bun held died down, he looked at it with a mixture of shock and happiness before looking back at Kirby.

"Kirby! You can do it!"

Kirby didn't even give Bun so much as a look before she ran directly towards the sea. Underneath Kirby's feet, steps of ice formed as to allow her to walk on the ever-flowing body of water. The squid blinked its eyes open, saw its retreating victim, and fired off more babies to trail her.

But Kirby's sense of danger seemed to have been heightened as she ran now. She'd spin around to swallow the babies whole with an inhale, then spit then back out as a chunk of ice directly at their mother. Then, she'd keep running.

The big demon gave off noises of annoyance as it was hit. It breathed in, then out as a spray of ice exhaled from its beak mouth. It froze over a gigantic path on the ocean, one large enough for it to walk upon. Well, and also large enough for Kirby not to be able to dodge. Good thing she didn't need to dodge, she just inhaled it and continued her path further and further into the ocean.

This monster gave out a large,even more frustrated noise as it lumbered from the rocks it'd perched on and down onto the beach, following after this small orb through the large path it'd made for itself. 

It'd continue to spray this gigantic barrage of icy fog, only for Kirby to inhale it, her cheeks getting even wider. Then, as soon as Kirby got out far enough, got her cheeks big enough, she unleashed it straight back at the creature that'd made it in the first place. It squirmed and tried to flee, but as its tentacles and body froze over into a block of ice, it became paralyzed in this gigantic ice crystal.

This added weight was too much for the squid-made platform, and it crumbled underneath this new popsicle, causing the demon to descend into the murky depths of the waves. Kirby did a little victory dance, but no one could see it because she was so far away. 

* * *

He'd hummed, watching the holographic around him in what he'd called his own 'personal library of Alexandria', a place of high technological storage and management, a place of order and intelligence unparalleled. Information and screens swirled around his head, showing sights and places he needed to keep an eye on.

The salesman had seen the whole thing, directly there in front of his eyes. Because of course he would, he needed to observe to see if the demon he sent had destroyed the person he'd wanted it to. But alas, that hadn't come to pass, due to someone. 

"Kirby," he'd mused, as more screens flew from their shelves to replace the ones he'd used for surveillance. Each one was different, of different fonts, of different languages, but they all said the same thing. The same thing that perhaps would be seen as lovely by the rest of the universe, but was something revolting and astonishingly cruel to him.

"Kirby's a prophesied Sun Warrior? No wonder Inksquidious went after them rather than Meta.."

He'd shuffled the screens into each other like a stack of papers and held them in his hands, glaring at them for their statements. Though despite his mood, he held a sinister grin, and laughed a most quiet, execrable chuckle.

"Seems like my priority's shifting. For his sake.."

He paused for dramatic effect.

"I can't allow Kirby to live."

* * *

"And that's basically what happened. Kirby saved the village and everyone!"

Bun was jubilant over the fact that no one was dead and the evil'd been dispelled, same with Fumu. Such happiness and smiles were usually infectious. However, this happiness didn't transfer over to the townsfolk, who just gave Kirby this horribly xenophobic stinkeye.

"You mean to tell me," Kawasaki sounded nonplussed, and with his eyebrow raised like that he looked deadly skeptical, "that we're supposed to believe some children and lowlife farmers that some monster squid even exists, and that this.. Alien got rid of it?"

Despite Kawasaki's emphasis on alien, he was an alien himself. How he'd adopted this fear of outsiders despite being one was beyond Bun's understanding, but whatever.

"She broke my window. That's one thing this alien did." 

The mayor wasn't going to forget that, it seemed. Neither was anyone else, because when the mayor says something it's usually rather important. He is the mayor, after all.

"She also trespassed. And has a criminal record despite being here for a day." Borun added, and the crowd of Cappys all looked rather unhappy at this tiny grey blob. 

Kirby hadn't a single smile on her face during this entire thing, and this certainly wasn't helping. She nudged Bun to do something. Bun recognized the soft touch of malice that graced Kirby's eyes, and turned back to the crowd with fire in his own.

"She saved you! Mayor, your cows were being deboned by a giant squid and Kirby got rid of it!"

Bun's cry was heard by basically none as the crowd dispersed, leaving him to be angry by himself. Well, not exactly by himself, he still had his sister and their two floating 'servants'. Oh, also Meta was in the plaza, and he'd stuck around. 

"You'll need to do more than that to impress them," Meta's voice came out as a warning rather than any actual advice, "or me."

Meta seemed like he was about to leave after dropping that line, but Bun ran ahead of him, blocking his path.

"Okay, I'm not even going to address what you just said," Bun pulled out the blue sun, "just tell me what this is. It glowed and gave Kirby power to fight off that monster."

Meta tried to sidestep Bun, but Bun kept in his way. The two were basically equal height, there was no way Meta was going to get around him very easily without doing something other than saunter. And Bun knew how much Meta never wanted to ever do anything other than saunter, ever.

"I have matters to attend to, I'll tell you later."

"You clearly don't have other things to do because you're here right now. Just tell me!" Bun was getting annoyed by the lack of answers, and Meta could tell that.

"She can ride it. Stop asking me." 

Meta hissed, jumping over Bun. Sighing from the lack of anything from the aloof and obnoxiously mysterious man, Bun turned to Kirby.

"Well, since your ship blew up," Bun reminded, "you'll be staying with us, right? Maybe I can get you into the castle now that you sort of helped Dedede?"

"Poob." Said Kirby.


	2. An Alien's New Home

"What was with that thing? Why did you send me that? Why did you let it do that to me!?"

Dedede was still mad over what'd happened recently, and was taking it out on the guy on the screen. He made this look of shyness, guilt for his actions, but as to whether he actually felt them or not was beyond anyone's understanding other than his own.

"I truly apologize, your highness. I'll be sure to financially compensate you for your.. Emotional and mental traumas."

This guy clasped his hands together and wrung them, giving off a distinctly strange vibe to Dedede, but he brushed it off in exchange for just continuing to be angry. Though, the mention of financial compensation pushed him back into his chair. He did love getting some money, after all.

"I've heard you have an outsider in your town now, what's her name?"

Dedede was quiet momentarily at the question, staring suspicious daggers at this guy for knowing something he couldn't have possibly known.

"Her name is Kirby, I'm letting her stay in the castle with the cabinet minister's family after she saved my kingdom."

Dedede tried not to sound accusing, but it's hard to do that when he was literally accusing someone. Either this guy didn't notice or didn't care about how repressively angry Dedede was now.

"Oh, perhaps you should assist her with getting some other, permanent residence, then?"

The suggestion wasn't entirely lost. 

"..Yes, because I can't have her stay here, despite how nice she may be, or what a service she's done for me."

"Well-"

"That was sarcasm."

That took the salesman by surprise, but he laughed it off.

"Ah, well your majesty," he shrugged, "I'm sure that Kirby will be a welcome guest in your court. Now, is there anything else to be done?"

Dedede's quiet thought as he leaned forward in his silver throne, getting up and lazily searching this man's 'eyes' for any sort of emotion than what was presented was fruitless, so he spoke.

"Yes, one more thing. Stay on your toes, I'll be considering cancelling my service."

Now that was a true surprise. Talk about a shock for the salesman, he looked positively dumbfounded. The video cut suddenly cutting to the usual, uncanny smile he had. Like the video had corrected his surprise.

"Of course. I do hope you reconsider."

With a push of a button, the television receded back into the wall.

* * *

It was a little cloudy outside, maybe but that didn't stop the Cappys from having their daily activities. That meant, for the kids, doing some fun stuff. The kids worked with the little bit of play they could get. Sometimes that meant going over to the especially dirty parts of the road, scratching in a hopscotch pattern, and playing with that. Not like it was very out of the ordinary, Cappytown simply wasn't hopscotch friendly.

But the kids went about it, each taking their turns, and doing it perfectly fine. Iroo went first, getting to the end with no issue. Then went Honey, then Hohhe. Kirby simply observed it all, trying to make the cogs in his head turn as to figure out what he was supposed to do. The game seemed simple enough, so before Bun or Fumu could go, he budged into the line to do some hops.

It was at the fourth jump in where Kirby tripped and fell directly into the dirt with a loud slap of grey baby on ground. She picked herself up into a sitting position, hearing the other children giggling at her expense. The only one who didn't laugh, surprisingly enough, was Fumu. Even Lololo and Lalala, who were just floating around with bags in their hands, were giggling. She gave all those who jeered as sharp a glare as a orb with a cute face could. Then she stood up and kicked at the dirt, and stomped off the path into the grass.

"Something about that doesn't seem right to me." 

Fumu observed, having Bun's attention but no one else's.

"Kirby's supposed to be like, the messiah, and she trips over she own feet when she plays hopscotch?" She'd continued, and Bun was surprised she even knew what a 'messiah' was.

"I guess it's weird," Bun smiled, "but it doesn't really matter if she can or can't. She beat up a literal giant squid just last week, I think that makes up for it."

"I think it's dumb that she can't."

The clouds up above, shortly after Fumu's comment, thundered and cracked loudly. It wasn't a sudden monstrous crack, but a roaring rumble into it, which took the edge off the jumpscare factor. 

"Now I bet you're going to be happy we brought an umbrella."

Lalala commented, reaching into her bag to bring out a rather nice, big red umbrella. Her twin brother did the same, only his was cyan. All the kids huddled underneath the two tiny floating ball servants as soon as a small drizzle began. Kirby, however, was not one of them. Kirby was still bitterly sitting on the grass when the drizzle came.

Then, she stood up, and headed exactly the opposite way to be under some different cover, away from all the people who'd hurt her baby orb feelings. 

"C'mon, there's a house near here, we can go wait in there until the storm passes." 

Bun ushered before noticing that Kirby had deviated greatly, and was now grumpily trotting over to a tree to take some shelter. She crawled up the trunk and into the branches rather than just floating up, oddly enough. She was more than happy to just brute force her way up rather than taking the easier, more sensible path to sitting on a tree branch.

She just sat there, nubs crossed, and pouted.

Just then, a little silver bird came from a knot in the tree, saw Kirby, and had its face lit up.

"Aw, aren't you cute!" 

The bird waddled up to him. Kirby shot the bird a disdainful look, at which the bird winced but didn't shy away. It just walked on up, and telling from its voice, it was a guy. Probably.

"Do you have a nest or house? I'd love to see it. I'll even help you with it."

His offer seemed genuine, and Kirby's expression did not lighten at the gesture. 

"Kirby, get away from Tokkori!" Fumu called, "All he does is sit around in other people's houses all day and be a deadbeat!"

"Yeah, he's like a couch potato!" 

Bun added. Despite his better judgement, Kirby followed the advice of Bun and Fumu because they knew this Tokkori fella. Plus, the bird looked like he'd just got his wing caught in the cookie jar, so.

"Ugh! So ungrateful!"

Tokkori huffed, fluttering back into the knot of the tree as Kirby just kept sitting on the branch.

"Tokkori's obnoxious, but maybe he did say something useful for once. We should get Kirby a house. I think she'll like it better than sleeping on the couch in our apartment."

Fumu's thought stirred Bun slightly. Got his thought process going. Kirby seemed pretty happy in the apartment, but it was awfully low class to just have this monster destroyer sleep on a couch for the rest of the time she was around.

"I guess the least we could do is find her a house."

"But where would we find a house?" Fumu hit the main topic right on the head, "Every single Cappy in the village thinks Kirby is dangerous. The mayor and chief don't like her, so..."

Bun thought about it before seemingly getting a brilliant idea. He didn't need to have a Cappy take Kirby in, he needed someone else to. Someone who's just as alien as Kirby.

* * *

"You want me to let Kirby work for me?"

Kawasaki stood outside his parlor, tilted eyes focused on the small kids before him. He was apparently on his break when they'd arrived, because he'd made himself a nice seat out of a stockpot.

"W-Well, not just work for you," Bun stumbled. "She needs a place to stay, and you're both aliens, we thought you'd get along well with her."

Kawasaki scoffed at Bun's offer.

"I'm Kawasaki, the best of the best. And I can only have the best employees, which is why I work by myself. If she wants to work for me," Kawasaki pointed his nub at Kirby, "she's going to have to go through grueling training, without pay."

Kawasaki's face held a most devilish aura as he put that out. Something about the way it looked, it was chilling. Or maybe that was just the excessive air conditioning that came out of his restaurant.

"So, can she be a live-in or what?" Fumu just wanted to get to the simple yes or no.

"The King himself likes Kirby, I heard," Kawasaki crossed his arms, "why can't she stay with you at the castle if his royal highness likes her?"

A natural question, and an easy one to answer.

"Our dad doesn't like Kirby, he's anti-alien. It took him years just to get use to you and you already had your own restaurant when you came in. If we don't find Kirby a place, she'll be-"

"Alright, alright," Kawasaki waved off Bun's ramble as to get him to stop, "fine. I'll take her in, but she better be appreciative. The sort of training I'm going to give her is the type that you have to go to elite cooking schools for!"

Kawasaki's devilish cat smile was still on his blue face, so it seems like he was really going to work Kirby to the bone.

"She better pull her weight." He'd added.

The parlor was expertly decorated, and honestly it looked sort of way too serious considering the town it was in. Kawasaki put in a lot of work to make it look the way it did, with the fanciful tile floors and the art on the walls. That constantly cold steel table where people could see him make rolls of ice cream out of any liquid, among other things, couldn't have possibly been inexpensive.

Kirby, thankfully, wasn't behind the counter making ice cream. She was skating around on little rollerskates and waiting on people's tables. Some people'd just come in for takeout, but others would sit and not only order ice cream, but order actual food as well. Which, of course, Kirby was expected to deliver as quickly as possible.

The kids were forced to watch from the door because if they weren't there to buy, they weren't there to be inside.

"Well, at least we got her doing something productive."

Bun commented, seeing Kirby ferry back and forth a bit awkwardly on her set of feet wheels. She looked like he was about to fall over one time, but she adjusted herself.

"Looking at it now, it does seem pretty dumb that we're having Kirby be a waiter."

Fumu knew she couldn't stay at the castle, though. So the whole idea of Kirby being something more fitting, like a guard, was off the table. Not that it hadn't been already considered.

Just behind them, a car slowed to a halt and shut off its engine right in front of the store. The kids were ushered aside from the door when a dark grey hand lightly pushed them to the side. To be polite, they moved. In their wake was Escargon and King Dedede, who'd gone into the parlor without a single word to the minister's kids.

They just went in, sat down, and expected to be waited on. Like any customer would. 

"His royal highness is in my store!" Kawasaki squeaked, looking quite happy before he glared at the recently returned Kirby, "Do not mess this up, or you're going to be fired."

Kirby wobbled a bit in her shoes before grabbing menus, wheeling over to Dedede and Escargon's table to deposit them. She got no thanks, and they didn't even pick up the menus to look at them. 

"Two waters, salads for the appetizer, one with seaweed and the other with cucumber if you'd please," Escargon was just going on and on while Dedede sat quietly. Kirby was just stunned at their demeanor, "hiyashi chuka for his majesty, and hiyashi udon for yours truly. Two orders of vegetable dumplings. Did you get all of that?"

Kirby blinked once at Escargon's demand, nodded, then went back to Kawasaki.

"Poob, poob. Poob. Poob." 

Kirby'd paraphrased the entire order, but she thought he got it pretty close. Kawasaki had been listening closely to the order, though, so luckily enough Kirby's incompetence in speaking wasn't currently a problem.

"You need to learn how to talk, what good's a waiter if all she says is 'poob'? Whatever, go do other people's stuff while I work on getting all this done!"

Kirby, eyes narrowed, nodded at the order and went to go get some water. On the way, she stumbled and almost fell, but managed to keep himself up. She clattered back over to Dedede and Escargon's table, placing the waters in front of them to again, no thanks. Then, she was off to deliver orders to others. The entire time she'd almost slip, and at one point she even fell directly into the table while managing to slip the orders on top before she fell on the ground.

"Ouch."

Hohhe— who, yes, had stuck around to see Kirby's endeavors just like Iroo and Honey did— winced. 

"If Kirby stumbles more like that, Kawasaki'll get mad.." 

Lololo sounded worried, and he had full reason to be. An angry Kawasaki, now that, that no one needed to ever see. Thankfully, no food had been dropped, which meant Kawasaki was only greatly annoyed with Kirby's service. Thankfully, Kirby was able to deliver Escargon's and Dedede's waters and salads without any issue.

"Don't mess this up," is what Kawasaki cautioned when he put the cold main courses into Kirby's capable nubs, "or there's going to be consequences."

Kirby held tightly to the dish's tray as she skated over to Dedede and Escargon's table. Kirby was no longer having any of it. With eyes narrowed, tired of being a slave to 'the man', she flung the dish's contents all over the ruler and his snail adviser whilst falling over on 'accident'. The stuff that didn't get flung was smashed on the floor.

Disgusted and appalled, an 'eugh' came from both as they stood up to clean themselves off. The crash and tumble caught the attention of the other people in the parlor, and that included Kawasaki.

"How unprofessional. His majesty wanted to support you in your new job, and this is how you repay him?"

Escargon growled, wiping the white noodles off his dark grey body and onto the ground like dejected worms. Dedede was busy doing the same. Thankfully neither of them wore light colors, so the soy sauce barely even showed up on them.

Kawasaki rushed over, towels and napkins in hand, to help them dry off. Then, as soon as he had the chance, he produced an ice cream scoop, and golfed Kirby so harshly out the door of the restaurant that she was ripped out of the rollerskates. She flung past the kids, and slammed into the car just outside the door.

Bun rushed to her aid, making sure Kirby hadn't been badly injured. Well, she had, he'd been slammed into an ATV. Kirby looked a bit dazed, and Bun wasn't having any of that. Nor were any of the other kids.

"Hey! You can't do that! It was just a mistake!"

Bun defended, and his sister was right behind him. Not in a metaphorical sense, a literal sense.

"You're being too mean, she's just a kid!"

Fumu agreed, her.. Well, if her eyes weren't covered by her bangs then she probably would've had some very narrowed eyes right about now. Kawasaki's own eyes weren't covered by anything, though, so he could furrow his brow all he wanted.

"She messed with the King, and I said there'd be consequences. I said she'd get fired if she messed up, and she did!" 

Kawasaki spat before returning to crooning over Dedede. Dedede was just looking at Kirby with these dull, half-lidded unamused eyes. Kirby couldn't precisely tell, but they did hold sympathy for the orb. 

* * *

"Sure, I'll let a criminal stay with me."

Borun didn't even move his cap from his face. He'd just been napping previously before Bun shoved him enough to wake him up. Bun huffed at the chief's outright statement of Kirby being a criminal. 

"She can stay in there," he pointed lazily to the cell, where one local criminal already sat, "she'll even get free meals."

"You've got to be kidding me." 

Bun grumbled, the other kids all rather uncertain of the chief's judgement as it came. Kirby, meanwhile, was busy by herself. She looked around the station and browsed the insides of drawers without asking.

"It'll be a perfect place for her to stay for the next four to six months." Borun chuckled, putting his arm back next to himself.

As luck would have it, Kirby found something rather interesting. Pulling it out, he looked it over. It hadn't even been locked away, it'd just been stored. So, she put the fully automatic, already loaded, safety-off literal uzi into her tiny hands.

Then, she took aim and fired. The shot startled the children and the police chief alike as Kirby recoiled as well. She got a smile on her face as her shot hit a wall, and she just continued to shoot. She shot desks, she'd nearly shot people, she was basically shooting all over the place. 

Borun overturned his desk and hid behind it, as did the kids, as Kirby went haywire with the gun. Only when it ran out of ammo did Borun dash out, tackle Kirby, and take the gun from her disappointed hands.

"Dad's not going to be happy when he has to pay for this one." Bun sighed.

* * *

"I'm not good with kids, and this isn't the place for 'em. Go find somewhere else."

Samo was directly opposed to the idea outright. He looked almost offended that the idea was even suggested in the first place, but Bun wasn't going to give up his quest to give Kirby a job. If she had to work at a 'herb shop' as the adults called it, then so be it. The place smelled somewhat rancid, but they really needed to try everyone.

"Kirby needs a place to work and live, please?"

Being polite was the best way to go, but Samo was still reluctant. Kirby, of course, was busy browsing the stuff they had. Some 'herbs'. Picking up one bag, she examined it. Then, she stuck it in her mouth.

"Like I said, go somewhere else."

Samo waved them off, then his attention shot to Kirby, who'd just eaten maybe five or so large bags of Samo's greens within a couple of seconds. 

"You think you can just waltz in here and expect a place to stay? Here? I have too many precious things in my home."

Curio hadn't even allowed the kids inside he was so protective of the stuff he had. Even to Bun, the local nerd, the home was restricted. Honestly, Curio's antics and defensive attitude wore thin very quickly.

"I have things older than your entire family lineage in here, older than the dirt you're standing on! And you want me to bring some random kid into here? I heard that she's some buffoon. No way." 

Curio slammed the door on their faces before they could really even get a word in.

* * *

"Well, ain't you a cutie."

Gus pat Kirby's head affectionately, letting Kirby smile for once today. She responded with a 'poob' and removed Gus's nub with his own nubs. Gus straightened back out and had a wicked smile that was just a couple octaves down from Kawasaki's in terms of evil aura.

"Yeah, she's pretty cute, and really strong."

Bun's advertising seemed to be working on Gus, and a flicker of hope shone in the child's eyes. Gus was probably the only one who took to Kirby fairly well out of everyone else so far, so this could be a breakthrough.

Kirby was busy near the gas pumps, picking up a gas nozzle the same way she did with that gun.

"I do need some help around here, it's tough work, heh, repairing cars by myself."

Gus scratched at his uh.. Chin. In thought. He looked like he was seriously considering it. Then, the sound of harsh water against concrete caught the children and his ears. Except it wasn't water on the ground, it was gasoline. Kirby was just spraying it all over the ground. Then he aimed it directly at Gus and the kids, shoving them until they fell over. 

Kirby let out a mischievous chuckle before she stuck the nozzle in his mouth, literally drinking gasoline. Maybe she wanted to run faster, who knows what her thought process could've been.

"No!! Stop!!"

Gus picked himself off the ground and wrestled with Kirby for the pump. Bun internally crossed Gus off the list of people who could possibly take Kirby in.

* * *

"I thought you said I was a deadbeat." 

Tokkori hissed, crossing his wings and narrowing his eyes. They wouldn't have ever asked him if it wasn't getting desperate. Well, it was. 

"You are," Bun prefaced, "we need to know if there's any birds around that took you in that could potentially take Kirby in."

Just then, a small pink bird fluttered down onto the branches. All the kids winced at the bird's presence, but Tokkori seemed pretty happy that they were there.

"Pitch! It's so nice to see you! What's the status on your nest? Can I stay with you?"

Tokkori chirped. Pitch blinked, then looked at Tokkori with optimistic eyes.

"It's not done yet. What's with all the visitors?" 

Pitch questioned, looking down at the kids and Kirby. All of whom didn't bother to scale the tree up to Tokkori.

"They're looking for a nest for their homeless friend."

"Well," Pitch looked back at Tokkori, "why don't you give them yours? You're always complaining about it. Then you can help me build mine and we can stay together."

Tokkori fluttered his wings, shocked at the offer.

"W-Well, I. I think I'm good for now, thanks, actually."

Of course, when the first sign of actually having to do work showed up, Tokkori receded like a turtle back into its shell. He did that quite literally, actually, going back into the knothole of the tree.

* * *

"We'll never find Kirby a home at this rate."

Bun sighed, looking rather downcast. All the kids were having a bit of a break, sitting around a circle. Meanwhile, Lololo and Lalala floated as usual. Everyone else was affected by Bun's negative attitude, except for Kirby. Kirby wasn't paying attention and was busy ripping grass out of the ground and putting it on herself.

"I think you're being too negative," Lalala's cool sunglasses glimmered in the fall sun as she cooly spoke, "why don't you just make Kirby her own house? You're a nerd, you can probably do it." 

"I'm not a nerd! And I-" Bun was booksmart, but he didn't want to downplay it, "well, I don't know."

"If anyone can draw up the stuff for a house, it's my brother. He'll get on it. I can go get supplies with Honey and Lalala. I guess Kirby could come with us too, she seems more like a girl who can lift stuff." 

Fumu grinned as she just lovingly tossed Bun into a job he wasn't fully confident in. Honey flexed as if to show off how ready she was to take on the heavy lifting. Lalala adjusted her glasses because she was cool.

"Alright, let's get to work!" Fumu rallied.

* * *

Dedede sat on his throne, thinking about earlier. Escargon wasn't around, he was busy doing whatever the snail did when he wasn't by the king's side. Dedede wasn't interested enough to find out what he was off doing. That and he valued privacy.

"I need to do something about Kirby. I can't sit around feeling guilty like this."

But alas, Dedede just slumped more into his silver chair, and felt even more guilty for doing so. He just sat, and sat, and sat. That's when he got an idea.

"Kirby's looking for a home and a job, but outside the castle.. I could just provide her a house."

Dedede seemed rather pleased with himself at the concept. His grey eyes closed, and he seemed satisfied. His hand must've pressed a button accidentally on his chair's armrest, though, because his delivery system activated.

"Hm?" 

His eyes snapped open to see the lights dim, noticing how the one particular button to bring up his machine was pushed all the way down. All the bits and bobs came out, cameras and small microphones, and the big television screens which flicked on to that familiar guy.

"Hello again. What is there to be done today, your majesty?"

Dedede glowered at the salesman's question, holding silence.

"..I see." The salesman broke the awkwardness of the situation, "Have you decided on what you're going to do?"

It's obvious this yellow suited guy did not want Dedede to end the service. For what reasons, Dedede wasn't sure. But he could tell that at least one of those reasons was because he wanted something bad to happen.

"I'm planning to make Kirby a house. I haven't decided on anything for you yet."

"Oh, a house?" The salesman cooed, interested, "I have something for you. And I insist, it'll be a gift to amend the bridge we burned last week. No fee, please do take it."

Before Dedede could decline, the machine fired up and blared, light crackled and lenses flared to account for the sudden thunderbolt in the room. Then, once it's done, on the transporter was a perfectly square yellow brick. One with a tiny star on it.

"What is that." Dedede pointed at it, not bothering to get up from his seat.

"It's a highly compressed gift. Just give it to Kirby, and it'll make a permanent home just for her. It gets bigger once you directly tell it to expand. It won't go back to its tiny size unless it's destroyed, though, so it suddenly going back to this won't-"

"Stop. I get it."

Dedede got up and took the square in his hands, examining it. If what this salesman said was true, he couldn't afford to test it out here. Lest there just be a home suddenly inside his throne room. He didn't exactly want that.

"If this turns out to be a trick, I'm going to sue and cut all ties with you."

Dedede shot back at the screen, to which the man on it just nervously chuckled.

"I fully understand, your majesty. It was a pleasure speaking to you."

The transporter deactivated by itself, leaving Dedede alone in his throne room with what was basically a brick in his hand. It was just as weighty as a brick, the same texture as a brick, but Dedede learned from that squid to not judge a book by its cover.

* * *

They'd decided to make Kirby a nice little house. Very modest, and honestly, it looked pretty ramshackled. Despite Bun's planning, apparently a house took more than just one day to build. Standing back to take a look at the 'house', it was honestly pretty bad looking. 

Boards were out of place, in places where it was structurally unsound the only reasonable option was to just slap more boards there. In places where there were vertical boards there were patches of horizontal ones. There wasn't even a door on this thing. Not to mention that the roof seemed to be collapsing in on itself. Also, it didn't have a floor.

"Guess that's what we get for just making something without any adults to help."

Iroo shrugged, and everyone sighed. Kirby waddled up to the house, entering it through its doorway. She poked one board of the walls only for all of it to topple onto her.

"Kirby!" 

Bun cried out, rushing immediately to Kirby's aid. He pulled the boards off Kirby, who equally helped in trying to free herself from the dead trees. Kirby shook off the remaining boards rather easily, crawling out of the rubble to examine the pile of what was once her proposed home. She frowned at what was left of it, kicking at it loosely.

"It's fine, I guess we can just try this again and get mom to help, or ask the Waddle Dees, or-" Just as Bun was talking and dusting off Kirby, he heard the noise of a little stampede of feet not only that, but the noise of a car engine.

Turning his head, and seeing that the other kids’ attentions had been caught too, his gaze was diverted to the grassy hill which currently blocked their vision from any parties who may be approaching. Sure enough, the noise got closer, and then sight came into play too. Dedede's all-terrain tank came over that grassy mound, followed by Waddle Dees who wielded little spears.

The car stopped a little ways away from the kids, showing that both Dedede and Escargon were making an outing. Escargon exited first, then Dedede directly after.

"His majesty wants to apologize for getting you fired from Kawasaki's."

Escargon greeted as he moved in front of the car. Dedede took a bit longer to move up, but that's probably because he was a tad bit.. Heavier than Escargon was. Nonetheless, he came over.

"We all know it was a mistake and mostly Kawasaki's fault, he doesn't need to apologize." 

Bun was sympathetic, he watched it all happen. It was a mistake, things happened, but ultimately it wasn't anyone's fault. Dedede just happened to be a powerful person that an accident happened upon.

"You're going to accept his apology." 

Escargon spat back at Bun, who would've scrunched his head slightly into his neck if he had a neck. Dedede approached, taking something out of his robe to display in front of the kids. They all took some interest in it, seeing as how he'd just produced it.

"I got this, recently, and I don't know what it does, zoi. I've been told it automatically makes houses, but just in case. If it turns into an awful demon," Dedede had this weird slight smile on his face like he was joking, "it's not my fault." 

Dedede put the little yellow brick down on the ground. Kirby poked at it. Dedede and Escargon backed off, and wordlessly, the other kids did too.

"Alright, weird.. Yellow brick, expand."

Dedede's uncertain command was heard by this tiny brick as flashes of pure red electricity conglomerated around it. The brick looked like it was one of those balls of plasma one'd see in science classrooms, with how it licked and zapped itself. To the pulse of a heartbeat, it grew, and grew, and grew. Once it grew large enough, the electricity stopped.

Instead, it spun. A wild, top-like spin, which whipped a small gust around it until that slowed as well, and facing Kirby and the other children was this big face. Its singular eye burrowed its brow into itself and the corners of its mouth dipped down. It jumped up directly into the air, then back down again to shatter and quake the ground under its force.

Waddle Dees scattered, Fumu's three pals followed their lead, and Dedede scowled from his seat in the car. He shook Escargon by the shoulder, who was currently stuck in a bit of frozen fear to snap him out of it. Dedede loaded himself up to the heavy artillery minigun and aimed it rather well. To shoot at this gigantic monster, that's what he'd planned to do. 

However, he shot just as it had jumped again, causing bullets to fly off into the distance. A cry from the children came out when the monster came down once more, making them squabble like confused chickens. Kirby was unfortunate enough to trip and fall on a board of the wood pile as he'd tried to run from the ground pound. The demon squashed what little remained of the 'house' they'd tried to build, as well as one unlucky person; Kirby.

Kirby was smashed like a pancake under this thing. Who apparently knew it'd just gotten Kirby, because it really ground her into the dirt, smearing back and forth like someone was making guacamole in a mortar and pestle.

Fumu and Bun's horrified gasps, as Lololo's accompanying gasp and Lalala's growl got the demon laughing as it jumped up lightly to smash back into Kirby again, continuing to flatten her. But Dedede wasn't going to just sit there. He shot again at this blocky boy, causing it to tip enough for the pancaked alien underneath to be seen.

Yup, she sure was flattened. Well, not for long. She sprang back up like a spring and scrambled out from underneath the demon right as it was about to come back down on her. It growled and spun to face her, jumping up and coming down after him. Kirby wasn't going to stick around, she had places to be, and one of those places wasn't underneath a block demon.

Kirby kept ever so slightly ahead of the block as it jumped and jumped and jumped again after her. Kirby found its rhythm, and the next time it was down, she turned around, opened her mouth, and inhaled. The attempt was just met a whole lot of nothing until Kirby ran out of breath and with a nice tackle for a cherry on top. That full body contact worked much, much better than any sort of ground pound did. To the point where the monster's body acted like a bat, and Kirby was a ball. The force shot Kirby directly through a tree, which crumpled and fell over much to the distress of the bird inside of it.

"My tree!!"

Tokkori squawked, crying as he fluttered out from the knothole. Flustered, he cawed, and Kirby laid underneath the leaves and debris quietly, hoping that the monster wouldn't be able to see her. Tokkori's squeals of horror and anger soon turned to just horror as the ground quaked again. Then, again. Then, just right below Kirby's feet was the yellow of the demon's body.

Tokkori wailed, voice drifting off as he fled, distressed by the mere proximity of the demon. Well, who could blame him? Just as Kirby felt like it was about to jump and squash her, under her cover, it didn't. Seemingly satisfied, the demon chortled. Then, more rounds of ammunition fired into it, causing it to cry out in annoyance and jump away. Seeing her opportunity, she got out when she felt the tremors again. Sure enough, it had temporarily turned its attention on the king in his car.

Kirby didn't have time to worry over that, though, and apparently neither did Fumu and Bun, who'd rushed over to help Kirby find a place to hide.

* * *

The sounds of gunfire echoed down into the rocky area where they'd picked to hide. They were accompanied by the sound of the ocean below the cliffside, crashing against the rock wall. Kirby didn't seem even mildly concerned with how the day was going, busy kicking at rocks and playing with them like they were dolls. Bun was pacing back and forth, and Fumu was sat on a big stone. 

"What if we throw rocks at it?" Fumu suggested, Bun just shook his head.

"Well clearly we need to do something, and sitting around here like this isn't going to do anything. Kirby sucked up some ice last week and got a hat and a superpower, maybe she can do that again?" 

At least Fumu was having some sort of idea of what to do. Unlike Kirby, who was still playing by herself.

"We can't go back to the castle to get some from the freezer," Bun dismissed, "we don't have any ice with us right now, so we can't. We need to find a way other than that."

Fumu sighed and kicked at the ground. Bun's pacing stopped, he gasped like he had an epiphany, then shriveled and went back to pacing again.

"Maybe we can just.. Trick it into going into the ocean? That worked with the giant squid." 

Fumu shrugged, just tossing it out there. Bun lit up, like he hadn't even considered it. He seemed to think about it for a moment, musing it over in his head for any flaws. Then he found one.

"It might just jump back out once it hits the bottom of the ocean, but we don't have any better plans. If we could keep it down there somehow.."

"Just roll a big rock on top of it like in the cartoons," Fumu suggested like this was a completely normal and sane thing, "that'll keep it down."

"Okay, first off, how are we even going to find a big enough rock. Second, how are we going to move that big rock? I know you play sports, but neither of us are strong enough to move a rock big enough to keep that monster down."

Fumu gestured at Kirby. Bun looked at Kirby for a second then back at his sister.

"Whatever, maybe we don't even need the big rock. The ocean's heavy enough."

"The ocean is heavy," Bun agreed, "but we should find something to keep it down there. Or.. We'd need to get it down to the deeper parts of the ocean, where the further down it goes the heavier things are.. It'd be harder for it to jump back out. But we don't have any ice so Kirby can't lure it out to the deeper parts very easily.."

Bun looked at the pebbles Kirby was kicking around. Then, an idea hit him like a bag of rocks.

"Kirby, hey, try sucking up those little rocks? Maybe you'll get a power?"

Bun suggested. Kirby didn't seem too keen on what Bun was talking about at first, then she realized. Kirby did inhale the little rocks, and she swallowed them. Nothing happened. She looked at Bun almost betrayed.

"Nothing, huh.." Bun sighed.

"Well, if the last power he got was ice, maybe he can get powers relating to water? We should try and get him to suck up some water and see what happens." Fumu nodded, and the logic made some sense to Bun.

Just then, the sound of bullets hitting demon began to get closer. The ground began to shake, telling all three of the kids that the thing that was chasing them was coming this way. Bun quickly picked up Kirby and ran over to the cliffside, where the ocean waited below. He held Kirby over the edge, facing down into the waves. Kirby was completely fine with this.

"No better time to test a theory than right now! Kirby-"

Kirby squirmed a little bit in Bun's hands before she opened his mouth and began to inhale. Slow but surely, a spout of water came from the ocean steep down the cliff and into Kirby's mouth. Though, as the ground shook and something landed in the rocky area, causing a yell of shock from Fumu. 

It also caused Bun to wobble and fall off the cliffside, dropping Kirby in the process. The two of them tumbled down into the ocean full of flat and dangerous rocks below. But before they could smash their bodies on the rocks, Kirby had transformed. She gained himself another one of those 'special hats' with a ring around her head, a wave of water formed on the hat. Her body transformed into something pastel blue and almost jelly-like to the sight. It appeared as if her entire body had become one with a crystalline, perfect ocean.

With a spin of her body, she'd commanded the tides themselves to rush up to meet Bun and herself, to keep them from the rocks of the coastline. Bun flailed in the water like he was drowning. His noises of distress didn't go unnoticed, as Kirby parted the water around herself and Bun to put them onto the ocean's rocky floor. Bun had a rather rough landing, but he was fine. It was like they were in a bubble of air.

Coughing and hacking up water, Bun adjusted his glasses and looked around. Then, he noticed a big square shadow over the two of them. He wheezed in alarm, tackling Kirby out of the way of the demon block yellow which had followed them down the cliff. It descended a lot slower in the water, and the clap of the surface overhead was unmistakable.

Kirby got up quickly, Bun tailing behind her as the two ran. The ocean floor went from sand to rocks, to coral, to more sand as the two continued to sprint through the sea's forced tiny dry spot. All the while a jumping block rushed from behind. The further they went, the closer another extreme dip in land. Like a trench of some sort. But this wasn't a trench, and Bun knew all too well that it was the difference between the surface beaches and what was called the 'the twilight zone' for the ocean. 

The perfect place for a demon, right?

As Kirby and Bun skid to a halt in front of the sudden slope, Kirby looked down it, kicking a rock down and watching it tumble slowly. Then, she looked at the water in front of her and expanded the bubble of air slightly. Kirby brought herself and Bun right to the edge of the steep slope. Bun shivered as he heard and felt the monster behind them. He just barely was kept from falling down the slope himself, but Kirby grabbed him and kept him there.

Kirby then waited until the monster had jumped again to push himself and Bun into the adjacent walls of water, watching as the block demon teetered on the edge before losing balance and rolling down the ocean's slope. Kirby commanded the waters to return as they once were, as the dry land closed itself back off, leaving the creature below the tides and relatively deep as well.

Kirby could tell Bun wasn't having the best time underwater, so using her ability once more, she told the water to force the two to the surface. Kirby bounced up easily and stood on top of the water like it was glass. Bun wasn't doing so good, struggling and gasping.. So, Kirby had to haul him with her nubs as she walked the two of them over to the steep cliffside again. She told the water to make her a staircase, and Kirby dragged the struggling Bun up the water stairs before ultimately slapping him on top of dry land like a wet fish.

Finally back onto safety, Kirby's ability disappeared. Bun was more so like a person who'd almost just drowned, coughing and wheezing.

"This is why I should be the smart kid." Fumu stated as she walked over, smacking Bun on the stomach, causing him to cough up more water from the pain.

"Hey!" 

Escargon yelled from above the rocky area, the king standing next to him and the car relatively close. He'd cupped his hands over his mouth so the kids could hear him better.

"Did Kirby get that thing!?"

"Yeah! And all thanks to me!" 

Fumu replied back, yelling over her brother's coughing. Kirby, meanwhile was busying herself by laying on the floor by playing with the few rocks that were around her.

* * *

"Well, there were a few complications.. But at least Kirby's got somewhere to live now!"

Bun looked at the treehouse with awe and wonder. It'd taken the Waddle Dees only one day to construct the marvelous little villa into this large, sprawling tree. There was plenty of little windows, it had a roof, it was relatively spacey inside and the outside was decorated beautifully. It even had a little patio and balcony of sorts! And a rope ladder. No one could go wrong with a rope ladder.

"Man, Kirby, you've only been here for a little bit and you get all the cool stuff."

Lalala, who was sitting on the roof with her brother, sounded rather envious. Or not, actually, she was too cool to be envious. Green wasn't her style, y'know? Regardless, Kirby was happy with the little place, as evidenced by the smile on her face as she grabbed at the door and carefully pushed it open.

Inside the home was an actual living room, with chairs enough to seat five people, a self-contained furnace by a little rug. Then, there was another room; a bedroom! With a big, huge bed, just for Kirby. Covered in luscious blankets, straight from the castle, and a fantastical bed frame suit for a king. Or, maybe, suit for a hero.

Kirby went directly for the couch (as the other kids followed), somersaulting over the back of it to hear a noise of distress underneath her as she landed. She was pushed off the couch with a thud as Tokkori, in all his now literal couch potato glory, looked at her with harsh eyes.

"Watch where you're landing! You could've crushed me!"

"Tokkori!" Bun narrowed his eyes at the bird, who'd just decided to drop in uninvited.

"What? I'm just testing out the furniture. Well, maybe test is a bit much, I actually basically own all this stuff by bird law."

"Okay, cool, leave."

Fumu pointed towards the square door, but Tokkori didn't seem very keen to get going. Infact, he just hunkered down more into the cushions.

"I don't know if you noticed, but Kirby's the reason I don't have a house anymore. She basically owes me back for destroying my tree. And this is a tree house, and it's way too big for just one person. So I'm her roommate now." 

Tokkori looked towards Kirby, who wore a face that demons mainly saw.

"Right, Kirby?"

Kirby took it upon herself personally to grab Tokkori, passive-aggressively put him outside the treehouse's door, then loudly slam and lock it behind the bird. 


	3. What! Battle with the Mysterious Meta?

The banging on the door hadn't woken Kirby up from her almost pampered slumber in bed. It was easy to say Kirby slept like a rock or a boulder, mostly because she was colored the same way and had the same emotional capacity as one. Regardless, telling by her soft snoring, Kirby wasn't going to be waking up any time soon.

Tokkori was very willing to wake up, though, as he got to sleep outside on the actual tree part of the treehouse. He got a whole earful of that loud knocking on the wooden door. Stirring from the branches he'd chosen to stay on, he grumbled and narrowed his eyes down at the kids who were still banging away with no regard for sleep schedules.

"Kirby?" Bun called into the door.

"Are you awake yet?" Fumu followed up.

Tokkori swooped down from his branches in front of Bun and Fumu, almost colliding with Lololo and Lalala on his way down. He'd disrupted the knocking, and caused the kids to move a little bit aways from their tool of mass noise production.

"Can't you pick some other time to try and wake her up, it's too early! You're so inconsiderate to anyone else who could be sleeping around here."

Tokkori reprimanded, fluttering in front of them on his little blue-grey wings.

"Oh, you actually stayed around after Kirby threw you out." 

Fumu grumbled, obviously unpleased by the revelation. Tokkori seemed rather proud of his stay, so he puffed up his chest in the air.

"Me and Kirby are roomates, like I said. We're sticking together, whether she likes it or not, because she destroyed my tree."

"Yeah," Lalala smirked even though she had no way to smirk, "so you sleep outside like a dog or a pet or something."

Tokkori hissed and pecked at her, but she put her Cool Dude sunglasses down just before he could get at her eye. Tokkori receded and then flew into the house through one of the windows which happened to be open. 

"Get up! You've got some annoying g- mff!"

Was what the kids could hear from outside. Then, some footsteps as someone came to the door, unlocked it, then opened it. There stood Kirby, rather tired looking, with Tokkori held by the beak in one of her nubs. Like, held shut. Tokkori was flailing his entire body around to try and release himself from Kirby's iron hold, and eventually managed.

"Okay, well, at least you're up. Something bad's just happened!" 

Fumu's almost panicked sounding voice and statement got Kirby to slowly lid her eyes, give a yawn, then go to shut the door. As if that would solve the problem. Bun, however, put his hand between the door and its frame to keep it from closing.

"Has Meta come by here?" Bun's voice was rather quick due with that same urgency which Fumu had, "Because this morning-"

"You should get a mailbox if this is going to be a house."

The kids turned around to see another person on the balcony porch patio thing that Kirby's house had. The old man's voice did not accompany an old man's body, as postman Mosu, the local buff old man, was there to deliver something. Well, why else would he be there? The blue old Cappy needed to be there to do something other than reprimand the lack of a mailbox.

"Are you just going to tell us to get a mailbox or is something going on, Postmaster Mosu?"

Fumu turned around completely from Kirby to talk to him. Bun did the same, but he kept his hand in the door so Kirby couldn't shut it while they were talking to this old guy. Mosu put one of his buff, muscular arms into his canvas bag, rummaging through it.

"A letter from Kirby?" 

Bun wondered out loud. Mosu pulled out the letter with style, grace, and muscles. The letter's envelope was all black with a minty green seal. Such an edgy looking envelope could only belong to one person.

"Special delivery, it's from Meta."

He offered it up to Bun, who gasped. Fumu, instead, took the letter almost feverishly and tore it open to get to the contents inside. Pulling it out, she began to read.

"Kirby, fight me. You have no choice but to accept my challenge, or I will find you and end you on my own terms."

Bun gulped. Kirby opened up the door, finally, taking the letter for herself. She tried to read it over, but it was upside down and also Kirby was illiterate. Kirby seemed to nod thoughtfully, considering the challenge before handing it back to Fumu.

"You can't be serious, are you actually considering it, Kirby?"

Bun's voice was aghast, his face paling.

* * *

"Tickets, tickets, come get your tickets!"

Tokkori waved around the paper tickets he had in his feathers as he jumped around the plaza like a little sparrow. Cappys walked past him, though some stopped as he caught their attention with his incessant chirping.

"Tickets? Tickets to what?"

Both the mayor and the police chief decided to stop by, looking at the little bird with a slight bit of annoyance and curiosity.

"Front row seats to the fight between Kirby and that weird guy named Meta! Only a couple of Deden a ticket!"

Tokkori waved two tickets in front of the Cappys, but they didn't seem eager enough to actually pay for them.

"That Meta guy? Really now?" Mayor Len repeated, as if he was trying to check if he was hearing things right.

"Yup! That Meta guy! If you don't believe me then go ask the postmaster, he brought Kirby a 'I want to fight you' letter!"

"Where's this happening?" The police chief wondered.

"It's all going down in the caves of Kabu, you won't want to miss it!"

Tokkori waved his tickets more, making them flap in front of the Cappys. Yet, they still didn't take anything or hand over their money. Instead, they both scoffed and headed on their way.

"Yeah, like we're that uncivilized that we want to pay to see two orbs we don't like fight each other."

"Can you believe that? Selling tickets to a fight? How terrible."

“It should be free.”

The two chatted and laughed as they went on their way, making Tokkori huff and squawk. But it didn't dissuade him from still trying to sell something. Maybe he just needed to keep his beak shut about the location.

* * *

Deep within the caves, where only the light of near flames reached, were two kids and three orbs (one grounded). As they'd paused for a break along the stone cavern's walls, one of them decided to speak up.

"Kirby, I'm going to be honest. This is actually really serious."

Bun, sat down against the wall and floor, sounded about as serious as a kid with a high pitched voice could. Kirby looked towards him curiously, waiting to hear more.

"This morning, something happened. Fumu saw Meta heading to Dedede's throne room, so we followed him and we both heard something that was pretty awful. Meta said," Bun tried to replicate Meta's voice, "'Why do you want me to fight him?' and then Dedede said," Bun then did an impression of Dedede, "'this is a chance to see how powerful Kirby is'. Then Escargon started talking and he said," another impression, this time Escargon's, "'Kirby destroyed two beasts already, we need to know how strong he is to measure if he's a threat to his majesty's rule. Use fatal force'. Then Meta was like 'I see, but if you want him gone why not just use a stronger Demonbeast from Nightmare's company?' then Escargon was like, 'I don't know where you got that idea from'. Then Meta was like, 'his majesty has a delivery system'. Then Escargon and Dedede got all quiet for a little bit then Dedede said, 'I will be removing myself from Nightmare's services soon. I want you to go fight Kirby, and attack him like he is a demon'. Then Meta just said 'I guess I can't refuse'. I think he was being sincere about it."

Bun's whole monologue there sort of left Kirby feeling a bit bored, but he seemed to have gotten the message across. Fumu nodded, agreeing and supporting Bun's story. To Lololo and Lalala, this whole thing wasn't new, so they just floated there.

"We should probably just leave before Meta can find us, there's no way you'll be able to beat him. We should just run on out of here before he shows up, maybe you can skip town or something, Kirby."

Fumu suggested, despite the fact they literally traveled all the way into the belly of the beast before deciding to not actually go through with fighting mister mysterious Meta.

"It's a bit too late now."

A voice chimed, echoing down the corridor. Looking towards the source, a pair of yellow glowing eyes pierced the darkness, as an imaginary guitar sting accompanied the sight. From the voice, it was undeniable as to who it was.

"You've already come all this way for a duel." Meta continued, his voice somewhat cold.

Bun jumped back onto his feet as he held approached closer to the distant eyes. Fumu followed behind, with the twin floating orbs just staying where they were with the torch Lololo held. Kirby, meanwhile, stood behind both of them. Her face showed grit and determination, though.

"Meta, I thought you didn't even bother listening to his majesty! You just sit around all day and don't do anything anyone tells you to!" 

Bun rose his voice slightly, facing the darkness. Telling from the footsteps, the dark orb was drawing near.

"What I do and why I do it is none of your concern."

The light of sudden embers illuminated the cavern, as blue fire lit Meta's presence up. Its source came from his side, as he drew his blade. The flames fired up the cave's walls and clashed against the air in a display of a most holy and enchanted weapon. The flame died as he fully unsheathed it, though, and he was plunged back into the dark once again.

"Come with me." 

Meta commanded. Bun was about to take Kirby and walk out with her, but she walked towards Meta anyways. Bun grumbled and followed, his sister and servants following quietly after as they trailed the two orbs.

After a decently long period of walking, they arrived deeper within the cave's tunnels to a new, larger cave clearing. The ceiling was covered in glittering stalactites, meanwhile the floor was speckled with occasional stalagmites. On some of the vertical rocks there were small bits that, as though they were crystal, reflected the light of the torch that Lalala and Lololo held.

The room was much too dark and much too big to see it in its entirety.

"I will train Kirby here." Meta nodded.

"But you have orders from King Dedede to hurt Kirby," Fumu stomped, "you're not going to train her, you're going to kill her!"

Meta turned to the children and spent a moment looking at them before whisking his sword straight into the air. It shot to life with blue flame once more, causing the kids to jump from the suddenness of it all. Meta spun back around, pointing his sword out horizontally from his body. With a single swipe, the fire from the sword spread and shot out like a huge cut, crashing and burning into the walls of the cave. The blue fire blazed and danced on the walls, revealing wall-mounted torches which now adopted the fire.

"I will train Kirby here, regardless of what his majesty says."

Meta emphasized the 'his majesty' part with a special sort of mocking. Bun, however, looked a bit stern. He wasn't buying it either.

"How do we know you're not just saying that to make us drop our guard?" Bun would've raised an eyebrow if he had some.

"We know he's not going to hurt Kirby." 

Another voice chimed from behind the kids. From the shadows emerged Mace Knight and Axe Knight. Mace Knight was holding a small silver wand with a yellow gem encrusted in the top. 

"Well of course you'd vouch for him," Lalala snarked, "you're on his side."

Mace outright ignored Lalala, flipping the wand around to be handle-out towards Kirby for her to take. She wasn't hesitant at all, snatching the stick as though it'd belonged to her in the first place.

Kirby waved the wand around, expecting something to happen whilst she did so. She got more and more frustrated when just waggling the wand around didn't do anything at all.

“Kirby, don’t mess with that.”

Bun tried to take the wand from Kirby, but she kept it away from him. Just when he was about to grab it, she yanked it out of his hands. So, instead of trying further with the wand, Bun looked to Meta.

“What’re you getting out of this, not listening to King Dedede and training Kirby?”

He’d asked, keeping his eyes narrowed.

“It’s nothing to worry about. It was Kirby’s decision to come here in the first place, and it’s obvious she doesn’t care.”

Meta explained whilst Kirby waved the wand around some more. Bun looked around the room, looking for other ways to escape if things got nasty. But no, the only way to get out was the way Mace and Axe now blocked.

“Can’t you just answer my question?” Bun pressed.

“I don’t want to right now.” Meta shrugged.

“Amazing.”

Fumu sarcastically commented quietly, Lalala sharing her sentiments. Kirby seemed to be ready to begin training, and with no more time to waste, immediately tried to run at Meta and smack him with her wand.

There was a loud clunk of silver on metal as the wand smacked against Meta’s head. He hadn’t even moved a single inch, and he allowed a long, bewildered pause. Kirby hit him again, and he seemed to snap back into reality.

“It’s not a sword.”

He pushed her a small distance away with the tip of his blade, as if to set an example. Kirby shuffled back to avoid the point.

"This is a sword." 

Meta decided to show off, just a tad. His sword turned a pure white (as if it wasn't already that gaudy already), electricity snapping and crackling around it before sparking into flame once more. Then, as it was done, he turned from Kirby to the rocks nearby and sliced his sword horizontally, unleashing a beam of magic which sliced through the rocks like butter. Then, it went straight into and through the wall, creating a decently large, perfectly lined gash. Well, as perfect as a person could get it.

The tops of the rocks Meta had hit slid off uselessly onto the ground, but they did so all at once so it was pretty cool. Bun did not think it was cool, in fact, he found it more than frightening that Meta could just.. Do that.

“The wand you have there contains mirror magic, and by the time you’re done here, you’re going to use it like you’ve been training for years.”

Meta jumped back from Kirby. As he did so, the ground in front of him became glassy, shimmering in the torch light. As that glass ground appeared, Meta thrust his sword directly upwards. The glass floor thrust up too, mirroring the sword he held perfectly in its form as it cut the air.

“Do that.”

Meta requested. Kirby blinked at him, looking down at her small wand in comparison to his sword. She thrust it up, but nary a single glass floor sword appeared in front of her feet. She tried again, but still nothing happened.

“Whoops, uh.”

Meta approached her, taking the wand from her nub (much to her disapproval). The gem at the top suddenly began to glow as it made itself home in Meta’s palm. He then put it back in Kirby’s hand, still luminescent.

Kirby waved the wand around, watching as the gem left a trail of glitter as she did so. She giggled and wiggled it around, delighted by the simplicity and the sight of the glitter. Then, she caught herself, and thrust it up, expecting some cool floor swords. There were none.

Meta took the wand back again, this time trying it himself. He held it out in front of himself, and from the gem came a swarm of elongated rectangles with the corners chopped off, all reflective and glassy. They smacked into the ground and went through the air before disappearing.

“That’ll be easier. Do that.”

Meta instructed, giving the wand back. Kirby took it and did exactly that, but again, nothing came out.

While Meta and Kirby were busy troubleshooting, Bun, Fumu, and their two floating orbs decided to make themselves comfortable. Bun had crossed his arms, looking rather cross with the whole situation, meanwhile Fumu and the other two compatriots of his were enjoying the seemingly harmless lightshow.

However, their enjoyment lessened as minutes of the same ‘Kirby cant do something so Meta does it for her’ thing went from minutes worth of content to what was literal hours.

Meta had taken the wand itself from Kirby, trying to figure out what was wrong with it while Kirby just sat on the floor. Her eyes were dipping and drooping as he was busy talking his mouth off saying things that didn’t really matter. He might’ve been talking to her, but honestly, she wasn’t paying attention and also she quite frankly didn’t care. The whole charm of the situation had worn off on minute fifteen, and now it was what felt like hour seven.

Even Axe and Mace were taking breaks, sitting on the floor like everyone else. One of them was even making faint snoring noises, though it wasn’t really possible to tell who was since they both sounded fairly similar.

Fumu and the orbs were asleep, but Bun was still awake, though not as nearly scorning as he was when this whole thing started. Now he was just really, really, really bored. He had one hand holding up his head and everything, his eyes were about half lidded too.

Meta was busy doing his own thing, honestly, it was like he’d forgotten the rest of them were there too. He was smashing rocks with spells summoned from to the wand, much to his own pride. Just as the thought crossed Bun’s mind that Meta wasn’t paying attention, he nudged his sister awake and wobbily got to his feet.

He snuck over to Kirby, silently picking the orb up from under the nubs and raising her up. She roused, but she was alright with being held like that. It was a bit awkward to hold her like that, but he’d managed. Fumu had gotten up fast enough to go over to the entrance.

The five snuck past the sleeping guards, then into the darkness. Behind them, Meta’s noises of magic and rock smacking continued. It took a few minutes after they’d left for him to turn around and realize they’d vanished.

* * *

King Dedede reclined in his chair, his throne room empty. In the silence, he thought. Though, he was done thinking for a while now. He pushed his thoughts into action by pushing a single button on his silver throne. Machines, screens, and everything in between came popping out of the woodworks as the delivery system came into the light.

One of the screens flicked on to show a familiar salesman.

"I'm not cancelling my services," King Dedede prefaced, "I need a demon from you."

"What a fantastic change of heart! What can I get you?"

"I need something that will get Meta out of the way and kill Kirby."

"I think I have just the Demonbeast for you."

The machines lit and sparked right on his last word, brightly sparking as something was brought directly into the castle itself. As the bells and whistles faded off and the light show stopped, a Demonbeast stood on top of the delivery system's platform. A green anthropomorphic dung beetle, a rather shiny one too. It held onto a long, golden chain which attached itself to a wrecking ball. 

"This is the Insect Demonbeast Skiddzy. Its ball and chain will destroy both Kirby and Meta with ease."

The insect spun part of the chain around effortlessly as the salesman introduced it, making a rather strange (but proud) sounding grunting noise.

"Perfect."

King Dedede praised, but smile didn't come across his beak.

* * *

"Where did they go??"

Meta asked out loud as he walked around, his body covered in reflective crystal dust as he traversed the caves. It seemed like he was alone, but Bun could've sworn he heard extra footsteps following Meta as he walked around.

Meta hadn't noticed their hiding place in the outcropping of rock. It was near to Kabu's cavern, an alternate entrance in one of the walls that lead to a more eye-level view with Kabu. As soon as Meta sauntered away, Bun went directly to the mouth of the opening.

"Great Kabu, we're sorry about all that noise."

"It is nothing if not prosaic in the grand scheme. I, with the omnipotence in the proximity to my containing cave, have seen all of the actions affianced with tonight. Due to this, I may shed my sagacity with those who need it most; you."

Kabu answered back, his voice indifferent to the whole situation. Bun took a small bit to put together what Kabu was saying from context clues, since even he didn't know some of those words. But he looked back at his friends and sister and sort of just shrugged.

"Man, we should just bring a thesaurus next time.." Lalala scoffed.

"Do you know about anything about Kirby, great Kabu?"

Bun's out of nowhere question was met with a momentary silence.

"My awareness only stretches so far, but I can affirm I do."

Kabu confirmed, causing small bits of disbelief from Fumu and Bun, despite the fact that Kabu was the one who told them about Kirby in the first place.

"The one called Lord of Misery by those with sapience, Nightmare, with his titanic ensnaring gasp on the universe itself, spawns from his great evil what is named a 'Demonbeast' so that he may spread them across the cosmos. He reigns people's allegiance to him through horror and power, such as King Dedede. However, as the past has told, Nightmare was incapable in one way, his dominion faulty. The terror and melancholy he spread did not stay well with mortal women and men, as they rose to attack against his desires. Though resistance at first found itself small, Nightmare's cruelness was far greater."

The quiet of the room was mostly because the other kids were looking towards Bun for any sort of explanation. Bun thought about it for a second, then looked towards his friends.

"This guy named Nightmare rules the universe, makes Demonbeasts which King Dedede buys. Though in the past he was fought against, I think by what's by most likely a Sun Warrior, but they might've failed."

"So Nightmare wants to get rid of Kirby, she's the 'resistance' the great Kabu's talking about." Fumu added at the end.

"I am not aware if it was Kirby."

Kabu's voice again rumbled through the cave and into the kid's ears. Okay, if Kabu wasn't aware if it was Kirby who did those things, why did Kabu tell him all this stuff. What.

"How are you 'aware' of these things anyways, great Kabu?"

Fumu wondered aloud.

"My knowledge comes from Meta's words and the solar wind."

"Meta? Alright.." Bun wondered. "Well, thank you, Kabu, we'll leave you alone now."

Bun and Fumu went back to the hiding spot, where Kirby was softly asleep, trying to snooze off her boredom. Lololo and Lalala sat near to her, with Lalala poking at her on occasion.

"She's still not awake.."

Fumu mumbled softly. Bun knew they couldn't just sit here forever, Meta'd find them eventually. So, he picked up Kirby the best he could with both of his hands. Fumu grabbed at Kirby's feet to help Bun pick him up, allowing Bun to take Kirby by the nubs. 

"Let's get out of here before Meta finds us.”

Fumu recommended. Due to the weight both the kids now carried, they had to walk through the caverns rather slowly. They'd managed to get rather lucky, actually, finding no problems as they traversed the maze of caverns. Thankfully Meta was out of the way, somewhere else, as they got to the entrance unscathed and undisturbed.

But they didn't manage to get to the village unscathed. At the entrance of the cave was a demon, who'd just appeared out of nowhere. Some sort of big bug holding a big chain and ball. In shock and surprise, the kids ran back into the cave, except Lalala. Who was going straight for the beast's eyes. It managed to buy some time for the kids to go back into the cave, only to see Meta's eyes further down the corridor, and approaching quickly.

Deciding the demon was better, they ran back out, only to see Lalala was not exactly having the easiest time against a demon who was multiple times her size. She was getting slapped around and what not. Once she was slapped to the side, the demon hefted its chain and caused the ball to dislodge from the ground, aiming to slam her flat like a bug.

But Meta, who saw the demon quickly, jumped as to kick the ball straight back at the demon. Hand like a pitcher's glove, the demon caught the metal ball with ease. Meta, back turned to both Bun, Fumu, and Kirby, was quiet as he stared down the creature.

"It’s Skiddzy!" Lalala yelled. Meta had been astonished by her yell, jumping a bit.

"Skiddzy?"

Bun repeated, watching as the creature quickly regained its bearings. It made this weird chuckling sound which was more like two maracas having a fun time flailing around rather than any sort of normal laugh. It whipped its chain and began to spin the huge ball around in the air effortlessly, like it were nothing more than a toy.

Meta's sword glowed in the moonlight of the outdoors (yes, the lesson had been THAT long) before turning to a pure white color. As he swiped at the air to unleash his beam, all Skiddzy had to do was just jump over it. In the air, from there, it threw its ball directly down, the clattering chains going directly after it.

Meta jumped out of the way, saving himself. Bun and Fumu were left to toss themselves out of the way as the ball crashed down, cementing itself pretty deep into the ground. But just as it was pushed in, it was pulled back out again as the Demonbeast readied for another throw whilst falling from its jump. Thankfully, it was going after Meta, who could hold his own.

Kirby, who'd been dropped, woke up by the sounds of children being distressed and swordsman dodging huge wrecking balls filled the air. She looked towards the craters being left by the demon. 

She turned away from those noises to hear the noises of two knights coming out from the cave. Mace and Axe, late to the party. Luckily, they’d brought the wand Kirby had little to no actual experience with legitimately using.

Kirby got up off the ground and approached the two, snatching the wand as if it’d belonged to her in the first place. The knights saw the demon soon after they saw Kirby, and the both of them made fairly cowardly sounding noises as they ran immediately in any other direction than from the fight.

Now with a wand in hand, Kirby waved it around, trying to cast something from the little rod but failing. Bun noted that suddenly Kirby had gotten a wand back, distracting himself from the fight between Meta and the bug.

"Kirby, maybe try sucking up the wand?"

Bun suggested, coughing slightly from all the dust the fight was kicking up. Kirby seemed to think over the idea as she watched Meta fight with the demon bug, slapping the ball directly back at it with his sword.

Kirby did, indeed, do a quick little inhale. The wand disappeared into her mouth and a new ability came to fruition. From Kirby's side, two long metal spikes held to her body with bolts appeared. A crown adorned itself onto his head with metallic sideburns and a nose guard for a nose she didn't have. Coming out of this crown were two white horns which stuck to the side of her head, then one white spike that stuck straight out from the middle of the crown. A mirror, circular and with a dirty yellow rim appeared shortly after, taking a place under Kirby's feet.

Then, once all that was done, Kirby got right back to sleep, seemingly bored by her magical transformation.

"W-What? Hey, Kirby, wake up! This isn’t Meta’s lesson, this is a real battle!"

Bun went to shove Kirby around, only to find the Sun Warrior was fast asleep. Like, he could not wake the orb up no matter how much he tried. This was honestly ridiculous, he could understand sleeping during Meta's training, but here? When there's a demon?

Meanwhile, Meta was having a harder and harder time with the bug demon. The delay on his attacks grew larger and larger, until he was eventually flattened and crunched underneath the wrecking ball and left in a crater. With Meta unmoving and going down like a chump, the bug demon turned its attention to the slumbering Kirby instead. Its head did a full one hundred and eighty degree turn, and its body followed after.

The rotation made Bun flinch, and made him tremble and back off from Kirby as the bug drew near. If it had a mouth somewhere on it, it'd probably be making a rather smug grin right about now.

It brought its golden chain up, readying itself as it began to spin its ball once more. Bun knew it'd only take one hit from that thing to destroy Kirby if it was able to defeat Meta so easily. Just as it tossed its ball, Kirby got up onto her feet and snapped her eyes open. 

Kirby flicked the mirror out from underneath her, it acting as a shield as it deflected the ball straight off with no problem. Skiddzy seemed to be caught from alarm, the ball slamming back into it and making it slide back. Kirby got this huge smirk on her face, as if she'd just done a fantastic little bit of deceit.

The mirror circled back to go around Kirby, sliding under her feet and lifting her up off the ground.

Kirby circled around the demon as it watched her with nothing but contempt for her. It lifted its chain up once more, expecting that now that Kirby was using the mirror to float, she wouldn’t have any more tricks up her sleeve.

It was right. She didn’t. When the ball came towards her, all she could do is try and dodge. It didn’t work out very well, the ball smashing through the mirror’s top and breaking the entire thing. Kirby fell to the ground, the mirror disappearing into glittering pieces.

The bug towered over her, but as it was about to squash her under its foot, she rolled out of the way and got back up again. She took the opportunity to slam the side of herself— the metal spike that’d jutted out from her helmet— directly into the demon’s shin. It wailed and hopped away from Kirby, holding the stinging injury with both hands.

Kirby took the moment to raise her nub in the air, and in the nub appeared another mirror. She grabbed it and threw it under her. She raised for another, and another did come. Though, this one was considerably much smaller, much more like a handheld mirror rather than a large one.

Skiddzy growled loudly, stopping its nursing and regaining its bearings. With a hiss, it gripped tight to its golden chain as if to say that there’d be no more tiny, petty distractions like the ones Kirby had used.

It whipped the chain, sending its ball once again towards Kirby. Kirby, using her small mirror as a paddle, smacked the oversized ping pong ball directly back. Skiddzy was prepared, though, hitting it towards Kirby with its fist.

The two’s back and forth differentiated at Kirby’s command, as she took charge of the battle with ease. She smacked the ball on a slight different side, causing it to angle and not go towards Skiddzy. It went directly past, away from it. The ball rolled, smashing into trees. The bug was about to gloat, but it hadn’t noticed the chain was still in its hand, and also resting by its feet. The metal went and swept the bug directly onto the ground with a thump.

“Kirby! You’re doing great!”

Bun praised. Kirby looked over to her friends, who’d hidden near to the rocks of the cave entrance. It was much safer there than in the forest. The bug’s glower centered on them as Kirby was celebrated instead of it. So, while its head was turned, Kirby closed in to kick it while it was down, smashing the bottom of the mirror against its head. Admittingly, it was a bit too high risk of a move. Skiddzy literally just grabbed Kirby with its other hand, much to the horror of the other kids.

Kirby’s squirming, odd shape of a form (the spikes made her harder to grab) caused Skiddzy some difficulty, but not too much. Skiddzy literally just begun to punch Kirby as if she were a handheld punching bag.

Kirby squirmed and cried out in pain as the bug clicked and chirped in sadistic amusement. It kept on keeping on, but Kirby was much stronger than any literal bug punches. Plus, she had a mirror she somewhat controlled right under her feet.

The mirror moved out, then promptly smashed itself over the Skiddzy’s head, shattering itself for maximum effect. It let go of Kirby, which allowed her to spawn a brand new mirror to replace the old one.

Kirby still had held onto the handheld mirror in one of her nubs, so experimentally, she held it up. She saw the ground directly in front of her get glassy, and she immediately knew what she had to do.

She approached the Skiddzy, holding the mirror up. It seemed to gain some sort of awareness as to what was happening, so it whipped its chain and slapped Kirby with just the metal rope. She swerved in the air, trying again and again to raise her mirror but was being stopped every step of the way.

“Kirby! Try hitting the ball like you did before!”

Bun yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth. Kirby looked at him strangely, as though what he’d said was stupid, then she realized that maybe he had a point. Kirby got a distance away and beckoned the Skiddzy.

Because it was a dumb bug, it did exactly what was promised. It flung its wrecking ball directly at her just like before, and just like before, the two got into a intense life-or-death pingpong match. Then, Kirby hit an angle, got the ball to go past the Skiddzy, the chain whipped out the bug’s legs from under it.

Kirby went in for her opportunity quick, getting close as she could and swiping up with her mirror. The ground below the bug turned to glass, and as it did so, it reached out as if to grab and suffocate Kirby.

Then, a huge cylindrical pyramid shot up from underneath it, rocketing it into the sky. It took the ball and chain with it, and they disappeared into the clouds. The pillar disappeared too, evaporating into nothing but glitter. The kids and Kirby craned their heads up, watching as a subsequent explosion destroyed some clouds.

The demon now gone, cheers from his friends filled the air. Bun, Fumu, Lololo, and Lalala all came over to make sure she was okay. Meanwhile, Meta was still groaning from his injuries, alone, in a crater. Only Bun seemed to have heard his soft mumbles of pain over the talk that Fumu and everyone else was having, so he'd stood on the edge of crater.

"Are you okay?”

Bun’s question was met with a thumbs-up as Meta struggled to get back up. Seeing as how he was okay to get up by himself, Bun didn’t venture to help him.

“I talked to Kabu and Kabu said you know things about Kirby. Is Kirby Nightmare's failed creation?"

Bun pressed, but Meta continued to say nothing as he collected himself. He wrapped his cape around himself prudely, not bothering to face the child. Before long, Meta was just standing there like he wasn't even being talked to.

"It’s alright, we can just figure it out by ourselves.”

Bun went to move away but he quickly saw Meta walk past him, directly towards the still celebrating and still armed baby. 

“Kirby.”

Meta spoke up, looking at her and her mirror ability. She smiled and cocked her head at him, as if to say ‘what do you want you big dumb dumb’.

“It’s obvious that you couldn’t do this without my teaching. This is all thanks to me and my skill as a teacher.”

Multiple groans from the kids, Kirby just smiled at him politely. If someone were cynical, one would assume that her smile would say ‘yeah, sure, just shut up ok, you totally did all of that’.

“Now that you are trained, we can duel. There is no stakes, but we fight until one of us is either disarmed or on the ground for more than three seconds.”

“No, you’re not dueling, we’re going home right now. Also, you’re still injured, so it won’t be fair.”

Bun refuted, but Meta ignored him. Meta held his hand out to Kirby, and she narrowed her eyes into a determined, smiling stare. She grabbed at his mitt with her little nub, and the two shook, much to Bun’s exasperation. Kirby was literally just doing it to get back at Meta for wasting her time for multiple hours.. Probably.

* * *

After a minute or three, the two fighters took to two sides in the darkness, battle-riddled field that was the outside of Kabu’s cavern. Kirby, on her mirror and in her armor, and Meta on the other, opened ratty cape and sword drawn.

Lalala and Lololo floated in the middle, holding a little flag— which was really just a leaf with its stem tied to a twig. The two counted down, starting from three all the way down to zero. A wave of the flag, and the two launched into battle.

Kirby began immediately with throwing the mirror out from under herself and directly at the masked dumb dumb. He was smart enough to get out of the way, but Kirby was smart enough to summon a new mirror as soon as the old one shattered on a tree stump.

Meta got close, dodging between the mirrors as they whisked by. However, as he got close enough to slice at her helmet, she put one of said mirrors under herself and moved up, away from him. He vertically leaped a good distance, kicking the mirror in such a way that would cause it to start rapidly spinning vertically, launching Kirby off it. Kirby smacked onto the ground, the metal helm taking the damage for her as she got to her feet just as quickly as she’d fallen. Just fast enough to clash handheld mirror to Meta’s sword.

The sword won out, shattering Kirby’s tiny, small mirror. Meta pointed his sword directly into her face, as if he’d disarmed her completely.

Her bigger mirror hovered there, in the air, stopping its spin slowly, out of Kirby’s reach. The important part being that it was undamaged; that meant she couldn’t spawn a new one. So, was it really like she’d won?

“Meta is so cool with his cool sword.” Fumu gawked.

“Cool?”

Meta took his eyes off Kirby to look off the kids, and taking the small lead Fumu gave her, she jumped directly onto Meta’s head and used it as a springboard to jump all the way back to her bigger mirror. She had just barely grabbed onto the edge, hoisting herself back up.

From her highground, she quickly resummoned her handheld mirror, and held out. The ground out in front of her turned to glass, and Meta looked directly at her as though to say ‘I am going to beat you up, my pride is on the line’. He tried to walk around the glassy patch, but Kirby just adjusted herself to have the patch to be right in front of Meta’s shoes.

Meta, too cautious to actually step on the glass, decided his best chance was to pretend to step on it. Though, as soon as he did, he’d stepped back. Kirby was too quick to draw her mirror up, causing the pillar to hit nothing but air. Meta leaped and sliced her pillar with his sword, coming in swiftly towards the orb who was right behind it. The glass had quickly disappeared, and Meta was speeding towards her with his sword aimed to slice.

Kirby admittingly panicked, throwing her wand up and down. Thankfully for her, the ‘cooldown’ on her attack was nonexistent, so another pillar rushed up and smashed Meta Knight directly into the starfield just like Skiddzy. It was pretty hard to see where he was up there, considering how dark he was in palette.

“Oh, hopefully he doesn’t explode too..”

Lololo commentated, looking directly up, slightly concerned as he held onto the stick. Lalala, too cool, wasn’t concerned one bit. She wore sunglasses at night, that’s how much she didn’t care.

Kirby did care, though, as she looked directly up for any sign of her opponent. She soon caught his glimpse through the extreme measures he’d taken.

Multiple Sword Beams came directly down from above. Kirby gasped and immediately hovered away, dodging the best she could as Meta came closer and closer to the ground. He kept slicing the air, sending beams upon beams at her in a flurry. Some of them were too close for comfort, and one managed to shatter her handheld mirror which she’d used to protect herself. The small mirror managed to reflect the beam, but it destroyed the mirror too.

As Meta got closer, Kirby noticed how he was getting more precise and closer to actually hitting her. But as he too got closer, that meant he was more in range. Once he was, and his beams were too, she flipped the mirror out from underneath herself and put it out in front of herself.

Kirby, sure enough, took a beam directly into the mirror. The mirror shattered, but the beam went anyways.

Meta was dumbstruck at the sight, realizing how close to Kirby he currently was.

"Uh."

He said. The sword beam re-unleashed itself, but Kirby had spun the mirror as it did so as to make sure the beam messed up Meta’s flow completely. The beam was vertical, not horizontal like the rest. It worked out in Kirby’s favor, as the fellow squabbled in the air. The beam cut straight into the mask, flinging Meta directly back and away, seemingly out.

There was a wave of silence before more cautious celebration from the other kids. Kirby rubbed at her face, nursing at all the bruises she was sure to get tomorrow thanks to that demon. Good thing purple sort of complimented her color palette, maybe no one would notice.

"No baby is better than me, you still need my help." The defeated figure of Meta hissed under his breath, nursing his bruised ego.

Meta, as he staggered up, had watched as part of his mask crumbled and gained a slash mark across the visor. It hadn't broken or cracked all the way through, it was just more so of a chip. With a defeat truly in hand, he'd disappeared while the kids celebrated their victory.


	4. Warrior of The Sun?

"What're we going to do?"

Escargon paced around the throne room, slinking slightly as he tried to think up solutions to what the king was planning. His eyes were a tad shot with the idea of it all, but the shadowy colored king didn't seem to hold any outward empathy.

"Your majesty," Escargon looked to the king in his silver throne, who also seemed to be deep in thought, "can't we just let her live here normally and not do this? She's helped us."

"I see that."

Dedede put his elbow on the armrest of his throne, placing one of his cheeks onto his fist in a most lax looking position. With not a hint of a smile on his face, he continued, monotone.

"What if Kirby gets fed up with us and tries to beat us up?"

"That's a very real possibility," Dedede waved off, "but so long as she doesn't try to end our lives, we'll have to keep going. Meta clearly didn't work, so we must go with what will work."

"Sire.."

Escargon's voice pittered out and he looked to the ground, wincing at the idea of being hurt by any sort of form of creature. Sure, he could spectate fights easily, sure if a fight came to him he'd be willing to stay and fight like he did with Blockin, but being hurt never felt very good.

"Can't we just tell her what we're doing? Why don't we do that?"

Escargon's suggestion, which he met eyes with the king for, went through the room with a second long of awkward silence. The snail almost shivered at the king's laze.

"We cannot let her know. Aside from that, the salesman for Holy Nightmare has to be convinced I'm doing this to get rid of Kirby. If he knows about this, I'm sure he wouldn't be pleased either."

Escargon was silent for his majesty's obtuse sounding logic. Sure, it made sense in one case, but in another, why did it have to be that way? Why does it all need to be real? 

"I.. See, sire.. You're very smart and think out great plans, as always."

Escargon submitted, only sounding slightly sad. 

"Do you have a problem with this?"

Dedede's voice, flat as ever, gave Escargon only some slight hesitation before he eventually pushed out his next sentence.

"Well, uh, yes, your majesty.."

Escargon couldn't do anything but frown, staying quiet as Dedede pressed a button on the arm of his throne. A single television screen unfolded from the castle walls, flicking on to display an all too familiar man.

"Welcome back to Holy Nightmare Co's delivery line. What is there to be done today, your majesty?"

Happy and chipper as ever.

"I need something that will bring Kirby great pain."

"And to think just a couple weeks ago you would've sued me over this very thing. Apologies, let me cut the chat. Right now we have a very... interesting demonbeast I'm sure you'll find is just right for both of those jobs. Its name is Sulfurycumulus."

"Already starting to cause pain with a name like that, what even is that?"

Escargon chimed, slinking closer to the throne to talk to the salesman as well.

"It's a very high end demon, I can't tell you. Company secrets and what not."

The salesman waggled his finger, almost teasingly. Escargon, meanwhile, mumbled how 'they probably just don't have any pictures on file'. Either the salesman didn't hear or didn't care. But, on his screen, there was a small bit of visual distortion. Like an afterimage sort of glitch, where old images were left on the screen, only to have the new and updated moving images slowly but surely wipe them off.

"I'll send it right away, as soon as we have one available to send. There will be a slight wait time, since it won't be coming through transporter. You'll know when it's there. Believe me, sire.. Unless Kirby sprouts wings, she won't be able to do anything against this demon."

As the salesman talked, outside the door of the throne room, a red knight was up against said door to hear what was going on inside, a slight crack open. As soon as the conversation ended, they closed the door completely and headed down the hall like they hadn't been eavesdropping in the first place.

The knight saw Fumu on their way down the hall, who gave them a sheepish smile and a wave. She even stopped in the hall, hoping for a bit of conversation.

"Hi Sir Mace Knight."

"Fumu."

Mace Knight greeted, stopping in the hallway to talk with her as well. If there was anyone better to talk to, it was her brother (since he seemed to be closer to Kirby), but Fumu would do as well. 

"I think I learned something that may be of some concern to you."

"Oh?" Fumu probably raised an eyebrow, but one couldn't see on account of her bangs, "What?"

"It's about Kirby, she's in danger again today."

"Oh great." 

Fumu's was sort of hum-drum and exasperated, like a 'oh boy great I have to deal with this mess again' sort of tone. 

"Do you know anything about what kind of danger she's in?" Fumu continued.

"Another demon. It's not here right now, but it will be. You should probably go tell Bun and Kirby about this, maybe hide somewhere. I don't know what sort of demon it is, but it can't be good."

"Alright, thanks Sir Mace Knight. I'll go tell Bun and Kirby right away!"

Mace was basically left in Fumu's dust as she rushed off to go find her brother and the alien they were friends with.

* * *

Kirby glowered over the sheepish bird who sat on his couch, the annoyed stare making Tokkori laugh a little bit, his voice slightly shaky because of how nervous he was.

"We're roommates, Kirby, you gotta let me have a couch to sleep on!"

Tokkori insisted. Kirby dragged one of her nubs down her face, tired from the display of stubbornness this dumb bird had. She was about to grab at Tokkori, presumably to throw him outside again, but then Tokkori squawked.

"Wait! Wait! What if I do some stuff for you, huh? Like chores? Roommates do chores, I'll do chores for you, just let me stay on the couch!"

If Kirby had any eyebrows to raise she'd certainly raise one there. Instead, her scowl slightly faded as he mimicked being deep in though, a nub to a nonexistent chin. She closed her eyes, then snapped them open to look at Tokkori, still not very amused.

"I-I can learn how to cook, you like food right? I'll make you food!"

Tokkori sounded increasingly desperate to keep his couch, and at that promise, Kirby smiled and removed the nastiness from her eyes.

"Poob." Kirby nodded, then pointed to her bedroom, where an open door revealed an unkempt blanketed bed in need of tidying.

"You want me to make your bed? I, uh, okay, right away."

Tokkori fumbled up into the air and off into the bedroom. Right as Tokkori went off, there was a knock at Kirby's front door. Putting on a flat expression, Kirby readied herself for whomever may behind it. Thankfully, it was just Bun, a welcome surprise visit.

"Hey Kirby. Heard it all from out here, glad you put Tokkori to work. Maybe he can learn some actual life skills for once."

Bun smiled. At the validation, Kirby smiled back.

"I swear the only good that guy does is sleep, because at least then he shuts up." Bun giggled, voice a bit hushed so that way Tokkori couldn't hear from the other room. Kirby giggled back like she'd heard juicy gossip.

"Anyways, I need to talk to you, can I come in? I don't wanna get rained on."

Kirby nodded at the request, allowing Bun into her treehouse home. Kirby glanced outside, noticing the overcast skies, then she closed the door behind them whilst Bun got himself situated on the couch. Really just make himself comfortable since he took such a long walk to get here. 

"Rain, poob...?" Kirby asked.

"Oh, yeah, you probably don't know what rain is. Well, it's pretty common in fall to have rain. It's what happens when clouds have too much water in them, so they dump it all out. It's all vapor just clumped together, so when it gets heavy, water falls out."

Bun informed, happy to talk a bit of elementary school science. He smiled as he did, not really having much of a chance to discuss science with.. Well, seemingly anyone, because he was so happy to talk to a baby about it.

"If they're small clouds and they dump out all their rain, they disappear, but when they're a bunch of big clouds like today, they make things overcast. Sometimes when it's overcast it won't rain, but there's usually a pretty good chance of it happening."

Kirby smiled at the explanation, soft enough that she looked content. So, Bun continued on.

"Anyways, I know you're pretty smart, so I was wondering about something. It's about this."

Bun, from.. Somewhere, pulled out the little blue sun trinket Dedede dropped all that time ago. Kirby stared at the blue sun blankly and quietly before looking back into Bun's eyes.

"Meta said you could ride this, do you know how? How do you ride this thing, Kirby?" 

Kirby inspected the little sun, poking at it with her nub before drawing back, uncertain. With what Bun could only assume was a shrug, Bun grumbled.

"I think if we figured that out, you could have something really useful to fight those beasts with. Maybe we should spend today trying to figure that out. Ugh, Meta probably knows how but I really don't want to see him again."

Kirby's face soured at the idea as well, but it seemed inevitable, unless they could figure it out on their own. Which, well, easier said than done. Kirby seemed so displeased with the idea, infact, that she snatched the sun right out of Bun's hand and started walking away. Then she turned back around and grabbed Bun's hand with her nub and started leading the two to the door.

"Woah, hey, where're we going?"

Bun was, infact, dragged out of the house, down the ladder, and onto the grass below the home. There, Kirby finally let go of his hand and looked pretty serious about whatever he was doing next. Kirby just threw the sun onto the ground. Which sounds really cool as a sentence out of context, but the context here was her just tossing a flat trinket on the floor.

"Be careful with it, you could break it!"

Bun scolded, but Kirby didn't listen as she then stood right on top of the sun. Bun tried to take her off, but Kirby managed to jump on top of it first, making the sun clatter on the grass. Thankfully, it didn't seem to do any damage.

"Stop being so rough with it, it seems like it gives you power or something. You have to be careful." Bun scolded while Kirby pulled against his hand, trying to get to the sun once again.

He managed to grab it off the ground and he waved it around in the air before throwing it down on the ground again.

"Wh- do you want to break it?! Stop!"

Bun got stern, frowning. Kirby looked at him straight in the face, stuck her tongue out, and blew a raspberry at him. Then she wiggled her way out of Bun's hold and threw her entire body ontop of the sun. Bun was quick to roll her off and snatch the sun off the ground before Kirby could harm it more, though. Kirby, unpleased, rolled back onto her feet and reached for the sun Bun now had to hold above his head.

"Kirby, stop." Bun commanded, putting his other hand on Kirby's face to keep her from jumping up and grabbing the sun.

"Poob!"

Kirby began slapping Bun, causing maybe mild discomfort at best. But they were still strikes, and Kirby was putting her all into them. She even managed to push Bun over and then grab the sun again. The two tussled a bit, but Bun reigned victorious again because of his larger stature.

"What is your problem?"

Bun questioned, holding the sun far from the grey orb. Just then, there was a tiny parting of cloud that allowed the sun to peek through, shining light onto Kirby's treehouse and the two kids that stood by it. That, and the blue sun itself. The sun glimmered in Bun's hand before literally catching fire. Bun yelped, dropping the sun onto the ground where more blue flame spread. Though, it only spread so far, stopping before it could reach the children.

The flames whisked themselves into a form much more reasonable and not as scary; a bigger version of the little trinket. Though it still flared with that similar fire on parts, it cooled down. It hovered there, seemingly harmless. Bun was just sort of in shock and awe. Kirby, meanwhile, was more than happy to march right over to it.

"Wait, Kirby-" Bun held out a hand in protest, trying to grab at Kirby, but Kirby had already jumped onto it.

The sun began flitting around before going completely out of control, a streak of fire blazing behind it as it whisked off. Bun cried out in alarm, just like the distant Kirby did. The ex-trinket flew all over the place. Into the sky with the clouds, down to the ocean, almost colliding into rocks and trees, then it headed into town.

Crashes and explosions ensued pretty quick, with blue flame decorating rooftops and screams of distress quickly following. The sun plowed through walls, leaving gigantic holes that burned with a mystic flame that didn't seem to spread, only burn the parts it was left on by the streak.

The destructive path was pretty clear, from how Kawasaki was yelling about his parlor not being for things like fire, from the fact that Samo's herb shop had absolutely filled with smoke and he was passed out on the ground outside, mumbling about being hungry. Kirby passed by the gas station and that didn't turn out very well, considering the huge mushroom cloud.

Bun was trying his best to keep up with Kirby, but considering how Kirby sped around at the speed of a comet, he was having a relatively difficult time. He'd gone through town, trying to follow the path of flames, but they intersected too much. It was impossible to follow any trail. 

As he got into town, though, luckily enough so had his sister. She approached him, jumping over some small flames to get over to him.

"What's going on? Where's Kirby?" She asked.

"I brought that sun thing over, that thing that Dedede dropped a couple weeks ago! I thought I could investigate what it's for with Kirby's help, but then something happened, it got big, Kirby got on it, now she's flying all over the place and causing chaos!"

"Oh, phew, I thought the demon was already here." Fumu wiped her forehead of imaginary sweat.

"The demon? What're you talking about?"

"Sir Mace Knight said he thinks there's another demon coming, but he doesn't know what kind. He suggested we hide, though."

Another distant crash and more screams from Cappys, more fires set, and the two kids jumped.

"That must be Kirby!" Bun gasped, "Lets go!"

Fumu only nodded, running after him.

* * *

Escargon was peeking over the large balcony at the chaos below, watching the village be torn up under the overcast sky. He held binoculars to his stalk, keeping an eye on all the flaming mayhem happening among the commoners.

"I wonder if that's the demon." He wondered, putting the binoculars down with a scowl.

"Whatever it is, we can't get involved."

Dedede replied, getting only a half hearted side-eye before Escargon put his binoculars back up to see what exactly was doing all this. He looked around, humming as he gazed over slightly lit up buildings until he eventually managed to lock onto what seemed to be a flaming comet.

"Oh, I think I see it. It's a.." Escargon meddled with the focus on the binoculars a bit. "Wait, it's Kirby? Your highness, Kirby is doing this! She seems to be riding some sort of.. Blue object with fire coming out of it."

Escargon looked at his king for any wisdom, but found none. He scoffed a bit, returning to his viewing of the child riding a literal comet. Though, his binoculars must've been broken or something, because Kirby and the thing he was riding seemed to be very, very zoomed in. He tried zooming out, but it just kept zooming in. He put the binoculars down and shrieked, ducking right before a speeding Kirby was able to take his head off. Dedede was able to do the same, as Kirby whisked past the two, controlling the sun like a cowboy did a bull.

Escargon let out a hefty sigh, wheezing from the probably near-death experience. Meanwhile, Dedede was happy enough to just stand up like nothing was wrong, squinting at the grey baby who was now zooming around his castle's towers.

"Find Waddle Doo and tell them to bring the Waddle Dees indoors. I will take shelter in the throne room. Once you're done, join me."

"A-As you wish, your highness."

Escargon and Dedede parted ways at the balcony, with Dedede heading towards the fortified throne room and Escargon to the head guard. From the ruckus Dedede heard outside the walls, he could only assume Waddle Dees were being thrown around like ping pong balls. And they were. The little mints were being tossed all over the place as the out of control sun slammed into them. It even managed to drop some of them into the drained moat over the castle walls.

Kirby held onto the sun the best she could, trying to direct it, but she couldn't seem to avoid hitting the Waddle Dees. Most of them retreated into the walls before Waddle Doo had even come out to give a command. Upon seeing the pure destruction, even the white-blue fellow was quick to retreat back within the sanctum that the stone provided when the sun came whizzing towards them.

Some who didn't retreat back into the castle were Lololo and Lalala, who'd come out of the woodworks of the protective stone castle walls when they'd heard the crashes. 

"Lets track that Kirby, make sure she doesn't get hurt." 

Lalala insisted, grabbing her brother by the wrist as he whimpered in fear.

Dedede, meanwhile, was having a very nice time in the throne room, listening to the destruction Kirby was causing outside with a completely flat face. Escargon came in after a few seconds, slightly burnt and patting some blue flames off of his curled grey mustache.

"Are you hurt?" Dedede asked, slightly concerned.

"No, sire, I'm okay. The fire doesn't really seem to actually hurt or anything, it's just the whole 'not getting hit' part that's a concern. I believe the fire can be sustained on skin without burning it, like a butane bubble fire."

"I see." 

Dedede shed his concern, pressing a button on his throne. A single screen popped out of the walls, and that weird looking guy was displayed on it. Again.

"Hello. What is there to be done today, your majesty?" The man asked, automatic in his questioning.

"What is the status of the Demonbeast you're sending me."

"It will be there shortly."

"How long in hours."

"Thirty one hundredths of an hour."

There was an empty silence as Escargon put on a thinking face, trying to calculate what that would mean in something more instantly recognizable.

"Nineteen minutes?" Escargon questioned, unsure.

"Yes, nineteen minutes."

The salesman confirmed, only for another crash to resound deep in the castle. He seemed momentarily concerned as to what that meant, but it was quickly wiped off his face.

"We're dealing with that," Dedede held his hand up, "don't concern yourself with it."

"I wasn't going to. Is there anything else you needed?" 

"No."

Dedede pressed the button again, and the man was gone. He slouched back into his throne, listening to another crash while Escargon worriedly paced around the room, trying to find something to keep his thoughts on.

Finally, though, the sounds of crashing had stopped. Which only meant that maybe Kirby had moved on back over to town.

* * *

Kirby had not moved on back over to town. Actually, it's for the best she didn't. Because this sun she just barely could keep hold of with her nubs was heading into a steep downward spin, straight into the outskirts of town. A place where there was basically nothing but lots of uncomfortable rock, some patches of grass, and some weird ruins as well.

It also meant nothing there was worth caring about, so it was the perfect place to crash. Which Kirby did, causing a tower of flame and a large burst of the blue fire. It was visible, very visible from town, infact, that it allowed both Bun and Fumu to track her crash site with relative ease. By the time they arrived, they'd found Lololo and Lalala had already beaten them to the site.

The place was covered in the blue wisps, which seemed to just be fine burning on their own without doing too much damage. Kirby, however, was not having such a great time laying face-first on the ground a small ways away from the blue trinket which'd shrunk down to its original size.

"Kirby!" 

Bun cried out, rushing over to his aid. The two twin orbs were already over there trying to make sure Kirby was okay, but having Bun and Fumu helping as well really helped. After a bit of squishing (as well as flipping Kirby so she's not face down on the ground), Kirby coughed and groaned.

"Eh, she's fiiine. Get up you literal and actual baby." 

Lalala chided, helping Kirby to his feet by grabbing her nub and tugging her up. Kirby wobbled a bit, but she was okay. Then Kirby fell over onto her face again, and Lalala made a noise like someone sucking air through their teeth. Did they have teeth?

Bun grabbed the sun trinket, which'd been left helplessly on the ground, inspecting it for a moment before rain started to come down. The fires around them refusing to be put out despite the water starting to pour down. Grabbing Kirby, the group huddled inside of a rock column with an indent that allowed them to take shelter inside.

"What was that all about?"

Lalala questioned, her brother poking at the still slightly dazed Kirby.

"This thing took Kirby for a joyride." 

Bun answered, taking out the sun trinket. There was a small bit of silence as all the kids looked at it, trying to decipher what exactly to do next with all the rain pouring down and a threat warned.

"Everyone, stay here and make sure Kirby recovers, I'm going to go see if I can get some answers as to what this thing is."

Bun stood up and went into the rain before anyone could object. Not that anyone did object, they just sorta watched him leave.

"You two aren't going? But I thought you liked not listening to Bun." Lololo asked.

"I don't want to get soaked." Fumu shrugged, Lalala nodded in agreement.

Bun went and trudged through the rain, shivering from the cold, all the way through the jungles to Kabu's caves. He'd grabbed a torch on his way, drying him off and warming him up through his trek. As he made it to Kabu's watery sanctum, he pulled out the sun he'd pocketed.

"I'm back again, Great Kabu.. I was wondering if you could tell me something about this?" He'd held the sun up as if the gigantic tree could see it better if he did, "The king had it, and it went haywire and started destroying things. Please, can you tell me something about it?"

Honestly, he probably should've done this in the first place. Well, he would've, had Kirby not started thrashing it the moment he saw it.

"The what you desire to procure are within the wooden bowels of myself, enter my bark and find your truth."

Bun looked down at the lake, lacking in any sort of bridge to get over to the mysterious and wise ancient tree. Bun's face twisted into a deep and nervous frown as he backed from the water's edge.

"Great Kabu, I uh.. Is there any way you can help me across? Please?"

The water shifted, as if upon request, as a singular root moved like a tentacle to form Bun a fantastical looking bridge over to the tree. There, once he'd reached the base, he climbed up to Kabu's mouth since there was no other entrance visible. There was a slight drop but he managed to stick the landing.

Inside the sentient tree were wooden structures, woven like yarn out of branches. A grand pedestal was in the center of the circular room, decorated with ever-blooming and leafed wooden limbs. It was like a dryad lived here or something, because this place was like it's own little holy paradise. The pedestal was somehow lit up by some light that Bun couldn't identify. He looked upwards, and a hole in the top of Kabu made itself known to him. But despite that hole being the source of light, it still overcast. It was literally impossible for such light to be produced, much less find itself into the inside of Kabu down here. He took his eyes off the ceiling and back to the room.

Bun gazed in wonder at the pedestal before approaching it, noticing how it had a small indent, like something was meant to be there. Bun looked at the sun he'd snatched and pressed it into the indent. It fit perfectly. 

Nothing happened, though.

Bun gazed at the walls, looking for some answer. There was an answer; scratch marks that had a pattern. They were sentences, talking about something. Unfortunately, all the markings were in some language he couldn't understand. It didn't even look local to his planet, he couldn't match them with any language he'd seen from his books.

"Great Kabu, can you read what's inside of you to me? Please? I can't understand it."

Bun requested, and when Kabu talked he felt the very ground below him shake as though he were standing on top of a ringing bell.

"Sun Warriors and Gloriosuns, rest inside this Kabu. Good tidings and good battle."

"Gloriosun.. That must be what it is."

Bun brushed his thumb over the Gloriosun, feeling a slight comforting warmth coming from its surface.

"Wait, this Kabu.. There must be more of you. I wonder why? How? Did someone build you?"

Silence. Bun wasn't really interested much in it anyways, considering how pressing the current manner of 'there's a demon coming soon' was. He let the silence hang for a moment.

"Uhm.. Anyways.. Great Kabu, what do you know about Sun Warriors and Gloriosuns? Can you tell me, please?"

The inside of the tree shifted, making Bun gasp. The bark of the tree melted away into the darkness of space, though Bun didn't feel weightless. He didn't feel cold, either, so something was going on. 

"Multiple millenniums ago, evil struck the cosmos in its entirety. Dictatorship of consternation and black moral action purged the galaxy of light and happiness, plunging it into the cold darkness of star-wide war." 

Bun watched as the stars around him flickered and shaped, as planets flew by him as though they were nothing more than beach balls. He reached out to touch them, watching him phase through his hand to their destined location.

"Creator and boon of terror in all forms, Nightmare, a single instrument of war in the empty band of space."

The stars shifted, creating a cape for a grand, shadowy figure that moved the planets in a taloned grip. Bun's figure shrunk at the largeness and the cosmic nature of the beast he saw before him. Like something, instinctively, told him that whatever he was seeing was worthy of fear. He felt the bark under his feet still as he stumbled a little bit. He felt the tree still against his back. This was just a vision, something that wasn't real, yet it seemed even such a illusion managed to frighten.

"The Holy Nightmare president.." Bun recalled out loud, under his breath.

"His enmity to life drew the natural righteous forces of the worlds he sought to seize in death or enslavement.. To oppose him."

The tall figure moved its large clawed slightly, causing ungodly creatures to come flying from the darkness and past Bun. When Bun turned, he noticed blue silhouettes of creatures he hadn't seen before rushing at him as well. They charged at the creatures, slicing and beating them. The space-like background transformed into a battlefield, but the silhouettes remained all the same. 

"Armies gathered, one the Sun Warrior army, and others not as highly commended nor lionized but highly skilled, as blood of both demon and warrior stained the grounds they fought upon."

Bun noticed one of the silhouettes was familiar. An orb with a cape. But it could be literally anything, there were lots of orbs with capes in the universe. Probably. What he also noticed was how more and more of the blue soldiers were being cut down and rendered immobile. In the most PG way possible.

"Insurmountable effort through myrietes' of loss and brutality was never enough. The demonic army outweighed the army of freedom and those virtuous. Nightmare's cruelty proved to crush all life that conspired against him as the war ended in his favor."

Bun looked out into a field of fallen blue soldiers, but he noticed that one hadn't fallen over. The blue orb with the cape. It seemed to be running away, and the creatures didn't follow it.

"A sole survivor was created out of millions, by luck. He'd fled in search of new hope." 

Now they were back in space. The single blue soldier rode in a disc-like craft, sliding among the stars effortlessly.

"All Sun Warriors had been destroyed, as had resistance to Nightmare's now quiet tyranny, but new ones were to be born. He rode to a planet he called home to rest and wait for new generations to pick up where he had left off."

The cosmic background faded, and Bun was back in the tree. He blinked a couple times, rubbing his eyes under his glasses before adjusting to reality.

"In all my time reading through the castle library, I'd.. Never known that there was a war. Thank you, great Kabu."

"Effort has been maintained to keep depressing realities from the eyes of children." Kabu concurred with an absolute 'this is fact' tone.

"This Nightmare guy, he started a war, he creates demons, he runs a company.. He must be the reason why demons are still showing up here. Someone is trying to get rid of Kirby, and it can't be Dedede. He did send Meta after Kirby, but.. It was so out of nowhere. Nightmare has to be behind all of this, maybe the king is being manipulated by him? It seems like something a capitalist tyrant would do."

Bun speculated out loud, responded to with silence from Kabu.

"If Nightmare is trying to get rid of Kirby.. He must know that Kirby has infinite power, like you said, Kabu. That can't be good.. Great Kabu, there's a monster on the way, what do I do??"

"The Gloriosun will be your tool of great need in battle to come. Leave it within my care and call upon it when in need. It will listen to your becking call, for so long as you care for its rider greatly. Since it's rider is capable, soon it will respond to her need. It will be tamed by the care of yourself and the determination of Kirby."

"Okay, uhm.. Th.. Thank you, great Kabu."

Bun nodded, and began his small workout to crawl back out of Kabu's mouth to go and make sure that Kirby was doing alright.

* * *

The rain hadn't let up. Infact, it just got worse. The water pounded on the rocks and on the dirt, creating dark and uncomfortable mud. The kids grumbled as their feet got wet. Well, just two kids did. Lalala and Lololo didn't because they got to float around.

"We should've just left when Bun did."

Fumu grumbled, looking out into the rain. The fires had still not been put out despite how harshly the rain was coming down. Must've been magic or something, there was no other way it could stay lit for that long.

"Kirby," Fumu turned to him, "how about you suck up the water and we can use you as like, our tornado dryer or something?"

Kirby gave a steely, unenthused look at her plan. But she sighed, then walked out into the rain, ready to suck up the water. However, as soon as she went out, she winced as the rain dissolved onto her skin with a loud hiss. She reeled back and stumbled into safety again. A few burn marks appeared on his body, much to her dismay.

"What the?" 

Fumu mumbled, putting her hand out into the rain. No such hisses happened, and no such burns appeared on her. She pulled it back, just a bit wet.

"Something's off about that rain. I think the demon's here."

Fumu concluded. Lololo gasped, meanwhile Lalala got a rather determined look on her face.

"You knew a demon was coming?" 

Lalala asked, getting close to the edge of their shelter. She stuck her hand into the rain, and some of the droplets disappeared into her glove. She pulled it back before nodding.

"Sir Mace Knight told me he thought one was coming."

"Well he's right, this is the work of a demon."

Lalala got rather serious looking, which only left Fumu a bit confused. Same with Kirby.

"How do you know?"

"I just know, I can feel it in my bones."

"But you don't have bones."

"My metaphorical bones."

"Do your metaphorical bones tell you what the demon is and how to defeat it?"

"Yes. You go up to it and punch it until it's dead." 

Lalala looked smug there, like such an answer was highly sophisticated. Fumu, however, took it as it was; unhelpful.

"Your bones aren't helping at all." Fumu stated flatly, getting a defensive 'hey' out of the servant.

"Okay," Fumu pressed her fingers to her head, "Kirby, try inhaling while you're in here. That way you don't have to go out to get a special power hat or whatever it is."

Kirby nodded, opening her mouth and facing the entrance. She inhaled, a whirlwind coming from her and redirecting water droplets into her mouth. But the hissing began, and the inside of her mouth burned. She coughed and wheezed, sputtering and spitting the water out. She blew a raspberry into the air, like that'd help get the rest of the burning water out.

"I wonder what's wrong with it?" Fumu wondered.

"It's um.. Acid." Lololo answered simply, Lalala nodding.

"Acid rain." 

Lalala added, making Fumu get confuddled again. Kirby was too busy trying to clean the acid out of her mouth to be confused.

"How do you two know?"

There was silence for a moment. 

"You're just assuming." Fumu continued flatly.

"Well, we're assuming something that's true!" 

Lalala argued, burrowing her hands into fists. Just then, they heard the sound of slipping and slapping against wet dirt, coming from the way that Bun had left. After a couple moments, Bun entered the shelter, absolutely soaked and shivering.

"So?"

Fumu impatiently questioned, though it was more like a statement. Bun wiped at his glasses with his thumb to get the water off. 

"I found out some stuff," he shivered while he talked, "but not much. I left the sun with Kabu, and he said that I would be able to call for it since I care for Kirby a lot. If I call for it and Kirby rides it, it should be more stable and not fly her around like it did before."

"Okay, great, how about we try it out now and we use it as an umbrella?" Fumu suggested.

"I don't.. Think that's what it's for."

"Well, there's a-a demon outside. It's making it rain acid that only affects Kirby. So it must be in the clouds somewhere, and that thing can fly, so how about we use it to get Kirby to the demon so he can beat it up?" 

Lololo piped rather confidently at first, but the more he talked the less willing he sounded to continue. He shrunk down a bit after he was finished speaking.

"Sounds like a good enough plan. Once Kirby breaks through the clouds, she won't have to deal with the rain hurting hr. It should be easy enough because of how fast it goes." Lalala's approval was enough to bring Lololo back up emotionally.

Bun trembled a bit from the fall rain's coldness, trying to dry himself off more while they talked.

"We don't really have much of a better plan other than 'use it as an umbrella'. So, lets try. Kirby," Bun looked at who he addressed, "are you ready to beat up a demon?"

Kirby, a little chemical burnt, narrowed her eyes and smirked. The confidence spread to Bun, who smiled back just as confidently. He cupped his hands over his mouth and faced the entrance.

"I call on the Gloriosun!" He shouted into the rain.

Now, for the kids it was a bit awkward because nothing happened immediately. However, at an open-roofed cave, a sparking flare overtook the sun that'd been left inside the great tree. It swirled into a pyre and burned out of Kabu's mouth, into the sky and towards the source it heard the call from. It cut through the rain, unaffected by its heaviness as it came to a stop right where the kids were. Below the sun, there was a small little wind effect, pushing the water out from underneath it as it hovered.

Kirby got underneath the sun, enjoying the warmth of it and the dryness. 

"You really can call it. That's cool, I guess." Fumu waved it off like it was no big deal.

"You guess??" Bun spat back, "I think that's really cool I can do that."

"You think books are cool, your opinion is not as good as mine."

"Whatever. Kirby, just.. Get on and go get that demon! Also, try to make the rain stop, if you can. I uh, believe in you." 

Bun recalled that so long as he cared for Kirby, he could call the sun. So, he'd do exactly that. He'd care for Kirby as long as needed so she could have this cool power. That, and so that way Kirby could do things. Mostly the cool power part.

Kirby hesitated at first, but she whipped herself on top of the sun and immediately shot off. Flare surrounding her and fire streaking, she shot up into the sky and far from the kids who believed in her. She felt the burning wind and rain pounding on her face, causing her to close her eyes as she continued upwards. She felt like she might slip off as he ascended, continuing all the way until she burst through the clouds.

Above was a serene and perfect place, where the sun glimmered and bathed the wall of clouds in all the wondrous hues it could. Kirby marveled at it for a moment, looking around and listening to the breeze. If there was anywhere she'd wanted to stay, it was here. Her eyes sparkled in wonder and amazement, but their sparkle quickly ran out when she saw something in the cloud.

Like a shark sticking up its fin, a large creature swam through the mist before bursting out. A cloud with one single eye and curved up spikes on its fluff. The bottom part of it looked sliced off, so the fluff of the creature was rather top-heavy.

Kirby and her ride rushed around the monster, examining it as its single eye narrowed. The demon cloud's spikes liquified into large, watery tentacles as she did so, and before Kirby knew it, she'd been slapped with pure acid. Her entire side burned in agony as she clutched to the sun he rode. However, she was no match for a second slap, which sent her tumbling off the Gloriosun and below the floor of clouds once more. There, she plunged and was burned further.

Darting down after her, the Gloriosun caught her and brought her back up to face the demon once more. Kirby, burned and tired, narrowed her eyes at the devilish thing as its spikes had solidified once more. Seeing the orb was back for a fight, they returned to liquid. 

Kirby'd learned this time, dodging the slaps as the beast delivered them. She whisked her way through the obstacle-less battlefield, trying to put together a way to defeat this menace. Kirby opened her mouth right as a slap was about to be delivered, getting a mouth full of acid which she coughed right back up. She tried to find a better weapon, then he noticed this cloud demon was preparing something for him. All the water arms had combined into one point, causing a great ruckus. From that solid point came out one huge water arm, which if Kirby got hit with once, would most likely completely submerge him in acid.

Evasive maneuvers pulled her away from the large arm as it came to try and slap her, thankfully. Kirby flew and flew, finding himself fleeing more than fighting. But as she kept flying, the demon kept getting more annoyed that she wasn't yet defeated. It pulled out more tricks from its book, one of them being shooting watery bullets at her while trying to slap her.

Those bullets, Kirby realized, she could swallow all at once if she inhaled one. She just needed one to get into her mouth perfectly, she couldn't inhale more than just one singular bullet without being burned. And almost like a video game, each bullet was spaced out enough to do just that. 

Kirby stood atop his Gloriosun, took a deep breath, then inhaled a single bullet, the watery acid missing his mouth and going straight down her throat. She closed her mouth, did a quick magical girl transformation, and became a form most familiar. With a crown with a little wave on it and a body now similar to crystal clear blue tides, she'd transformed into a watery Kirby.

With an ability in hand, all Kirby needed to do was.. Wait a second, Bun said that small clouds that dumped all their rain would disappear. Kirby couldn't make the overcast skies disappear, but this monster was a small cloud. It just needs to get rid of the water in it, then it'd go away.

Kirby waved her nubs and forced the rains and water within the monster. It begun to drop all of it in a near waterfall. She pushed the water out the monster while still dodging the slaps and the bullets on the Gloriosun. 

Less and less water packed into the creature, causing it to shrivel and look rather uncomfortable. It tried hard to slap Kirby, but she’d had gotten too quick and too used to the routine. The demon got into a desperate state of wild arm flailing, trying to knock Kirby, before it ultimately disappeared from all the water being put into its cloud. All that was left was it’s small eye, which cried a single tear then exploded.

The wind of the explosion cut a hole in the clouds below, allowing the bright sun to shine through like a spotlight. Kirby descended through it, enjoying the heat on the back as his ability faded. By the time she'd landed, those kids were waiting for her. She disembarked from the Gloriosun, which immediately flew off into the distance, back where it came from.

"Did you get it?" Bun asked, smile on his face.

Kirby, proud of her accomplishment, got a smug face full of pride.

"Great job, Kirby! Lets get home, you can have dinner with us."

"Poob!" 

Kirby did a little dance, another day done and demon defeated.


End file.
